Installation [And] Exhibition Design[s]

Delirious LandLord

A board game as an interactive installation made in the context of Jinguashi – Shuinandong – Jiufen and represents those areas’ identity changes throughout the time
(2019)

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“Delirious LandLord” is an interactive installation of collaborative work between “Wawies” Wisnu Wisdantio and Nova Rachmad Basuki (Nopel). It’s part of an interconnected installations exhibition titled “Deposits Of The Island“ by Open Contemporary Art Center (OCAC) and Lifepatch under the framework of the 2019 Asian Art Biennial with the main title “The Strangers from beyond the Mountain and the Sea” in the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts – Taichung, Taiwan, from 5 October 2019 until 9 February 2020, curated by Chia-Wei Hsu and Ho Tzu Nyen.

Asian Art Biennale 2019 “The stranger from the mountains and the sea” video teaser
courtesy of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts Official YouTube Channel on youtube.com

The collaborative work, Deposits of the Island, aims to build a place of encounter and exchange. It invites audience to become the agents in this journey, using sound and playful games as a medium to evoke hidden stories and to “extract” the layers of historical, geographical, and memory in Jinguashi. It also dives into the body memories of migrant workers gathering around ASEAN Plaza and aims to initiate dialogues through the touch of massage. With this work, OCAC and Lifepatch aim to lead the audience through the “hand of the deities” — to learn the spices, herbs, and liquor from Taiwan and Indonesia, and further explore their customs, histories, cultures, and transformative impacts in the contemporary world.

– exhibition curatorial, 2019 –

The Shuinandong Smelter on panorama view of Lianxin Village, Ruifang District

Large tiered construction with a fortress-like appearance known as “The Remains of the 13 Levels” stands firm following the hillside of Ruifang district. Although abandoned for decades and slowly engulfed by nature, those Shuinandong smelter remnants’ iconic size and spectacular setting never failed to show the gold rush glorious era in the early 1930s, an era that drove the Jiufen and Jinguashi developed as prosperous gold mining towns. Unfortunately, the depletion of gold ore deposits led the mining companies into bankruptcy and shut down the Shuinandong Smelter around the 1973s. Shortly, the charms of prosperous mining towns faded off, and its citizens slowly abandoned their houses with only a few left who chose to stay and struggle to survive.

Despite being abandoned, forgotten, and isolated in the hill country for many years, this seems to have allowed those towns to preserve most of their past stories about prosperity and despair. Eventually, it attracted a film director – Hou Hsiao-Hsien – to use Jiufen town in his film project, entitled “A City of Sadness”. A historical drama film project that turned out to be a controversial film after its release in 1987. It is the first film that depicts the Taiwan dark historical event of the February 28 Incident as the story background when it was still considered a highly sensitive subject and prohibited from being discussed in public. However, it becomes too famous to be silenced after winning the Golden Lion Award at the Venice International Film Festival and hitting the box office. It encourages people to talk about part of their history that was suppressed or considered taboo. as well as encourages People who wanted to reconnect with their histories to start swarming those old mining towns in the early ’90s. Eventually, it drove Jiufen and the other mining towns re-known and woke up after a long stretch of time drowning in a deep sleep.

As if being hit by a new kind of gold rush, tourism blasts ignited the rows of empty and abandoned old buildings in Juifen being reused as houses, small inns, museums, souvenir shops, pottery shops, local food stalls, and tea houses. Filling the rural town’s old narrow streets with pleasant smells along with the lively sights and sounds of local people’s culture within their routine life. The crowds also start swarming the Riufang district widely, spreading from the Jinguashi settlement until far across the entire hills and reaching the seashore of Shuinandong. Those former mining towns constantly grow into famous cultural tourism destinations and attract influxes of people who want to feel the authentic impression of local culture and learn more about Shuinandong – Jinguashi – Jiufen historical stories. In the end, it also attracted the government to invest a large number of funds to hastening those rural towns into one of the New Taipei City economic pillars through tourism, such as providing public transportation facilities and tourism infrastructure.

Shuinandong Hilly Sightview

Jiufen Hilly Sightview

About Caffee – Shuinandong

The Ōgon Shrine – Jinguashi

Shin-Jin-Jiu Old Steet

Gold Museum Jinguashi

Jiufen Old Steet

As we sift through the scattered fragments of those towns’ history and experience walking through their narrow streets, we find a hint of a hidden layer that is implied along with the long stories about gold and prosperity. It appears that instead of being developed organically, the transformation of identity, sociocultural characteristics, and even their ecological conditions tends to occur – directly and indirectly – due to the interference of “Strangers” who show up one after another in various forms. Ranging from gold mine companies, colonizers, artists, entrepreneurs, investors, or even the government, each of those figures has their own perspective to determine the value of Riufang district, as well as manages that hilly area based on their own specific goals and interests. On the other hand, though the dwellers seem helpless and trapped as spectators who keep struggling to survive, some also have a significant role as actors. Their ability to adapt to every transformation and persistence to preserve their daily culture eventually nourished those rural towns’ “Spirit of Place”. In other words, the “Strangers” and even the “Dwellers” take a role in determining the space’s identity and even change it into another identity based on their particular interest, as well as the figure who chooses to don’t take action and just follows their living space transformation became valuable things that emphasize the whole story of Riufang hilly area.

The tendency that the significant role of “Strangers” or even the “Dwellers” gets buried as a hidden layer overshadowed by nostalgic narratives of prosperity and despair drives our interest to re-enact those Strangers’ contributions as narrations fragments that shaped the whole history of Shuinandong – Jingashi – Juifen. Instead of representing it in the form of a historical narrative full of dates, names, and even complex historical event notes, which tend to be monotonous and sometimes less engaging storytelling process, the narratives of how the “Stranger” can determine the space’s identity and even can change it into another identity is presented side by side with Riufang Hill’s history in the form of an interactive role-playing game installation as if a monopoly board game. Driven by this idea, in collaboration with Nova Rachmad Basuki (Nopel), we created “Delirious LandLord” as an interactive installation based on the classic Monopoly board game.

“Delirious LandLord” is a customised Monopoly board game that delivers its players on a captivating virtual journey through various places spread across the Riufang hilly area. As if playing the classic Monopoly board game, focusing on buying, trading, and developing properties. The main objective of The Delirious Landlord is to try to deliver its players a deeper understanding of how their role as a “Stranger” understands each place’s in-game identity and how they can determine their actions while defining each place as a property. Meanwhile, at the same time, the players can also learn that their activities resemble the historical significance of the Strangers and how their acts can have an impact towards the Riufang hilly area and its society in the real event.

“Delirious LandLord” display video – “Deposits Of The Island” – Asian Art Biennale 2019 “The stranger from the mountains and the sea”
Video by Nova Rachmad Basuki (Nopel) (Lifepatch)

“Delirious Landlord Property Cards” Design by “Wawies” Wisnu Wisdantio, Sketches by Andi Pratomo

“Delirious Landlord Money” Design by “Wawies” Wisnu Wisdantio, Sketches by Andi Pratomo. (Talent Figure: “Wawies” Wisnu Wisdantio, Nova Rachmad Basuki (Nopel), Andi Pratomo, Shih-Tung Lo)

The identity of an area and how it changes into another identity often occurs because of some people’s interest.
Similar to the way when playing a property board game called the Monopoly game.
Not just driven the ecological changes, it also impacts the dweller’s way of life.
They are forced to adapt in order to survive in every condition.
However, will they choose to take the role of audiences and float within the flow of the game?
Or will they choose to take the role an actor who can influence and determine their own identity in the future?
What about you?

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Delirious Landlord within “Deposits Of The Island” exhibition on Asian Art Biennale 2019 “The stranger from the mountains and the sea” – Artist Talk Video

courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts Official YouTube Channel on youtube.com

November 30, 2019April 15, 2026 by Wawies - Wisnu Wisdantio

Tano Toba Saga – “Power And Other Things: Indonesia And Art (1835-Now)” Europalia Art Festival Indonesia

An art exhibition design project exploring North Sumatra’s long colonial history through the narrative of conflict between Sisingamangaraja XII and Hans Christoffel during the Tapanoeli War.

(2017)

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“The Tano Toba Saga” installation is the second art exhibition that was designed for the Lifepatch project’s exhibition series, and became part of the “Power And Other Things: Indonesia & Art (1835 – Now)” under the framework of Europalia Art Festival Indonesia in Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR) – Brussels, from 18 October 2017 until 21 January 2018, curated by Riksa Afiaty and Charles Esche. Meanwhile, the First project is an exhibition titled “IN SITU: Lifepatch – The Tale Of Tiger And Lion” in Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA) from 16 September 2017 until 7 January 2018, curated by Nav Haq and Alia Swastika. Both are part of an exhibition series of installations that depict the stories of two key figures and their relationships within a small fragment of the long history of North Sumatra during the colonial era: the Swiss-Dutch soldier Hans Christoffel and the last king of the Toba people, Sisingamangaraja XII.

Both of the installation projects, “The Tale Of Tiger And Lion” and “The Tano Toba Saga”, begin with an opportunity for Lifepatch to conduct brief research through various well-preserved Indonesian historical artefacts at the Museum Aan de Stroom (MAS) in Antwerp. It possesses thousands of collections from the Nederlands Indisch colonisation era, stretching out from weapons, jewellery, heirlooms, flags, documents, old photos, and many more items were granted from Hans Christoffel’s private collection. Since too many to show, some of them curated to present Sisingamangaraja XII and the Toba people’s resistance towards the Dutch colonisation in North Sumatra, along with the narration about Hans Christoffel, who successfully ended the resistance during his services as a Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger (KNIL) officer. At the same time, we also got an opportunity to learn about both of the two key figures from the artefacts collection at Bronbeek Museum in Arnhem, which is the Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger (KNIL) main archive to keep their histories during the East Indies colonisation era.

Witnessing thousands of artefacts, including irreplaceable historical heirlooms that are directly related to the Sisingamangaraja XII and Toba People’s resistance, being stored and valued to construct or verify historical narrations far from their origins, brought Lifepatch to conduct further research in various places in North Sumatra, such as Medan, Balige, Bakkara, Parlilitan, Pangururan, and many more places. During the exploration, we realised that even though people in North Sumatra didn’t possess their rightful historical heirlooms and they were being oppressed culturally and politically by the colonial government, they still believed and preserved their histories through generations. Slightly different from the structure of Western knowledge in that history tends to be conveyed in a linear fashion and facts are generally collected based on written sources and the existence of historical objects as physical proof, the history and knowledge in Indonesia are produced and delivered orally and culturally through storytelling, theatre, song or even dance. Sifting through those scattered materials in North Sumatra, we begin to gather fragments of stories based on the Toba people’s side of view about Sisingamangaraja XII, the people’s resistance against the Dutch, Hans Christoffel, the connection between colonialism and evangelism, and the myths that accompanied the Tapanoeli war stories.

Working with those artefacts, materials, and narrations, there are tendencies that the histories depicted and often articulated into several versions are motivated by the perspective of ideology, politics, and even personal identity. It appears that the “truth” is slightly different between the conflict “winners” version and the Toba people’s version. However, instead of intending to summarise the long history of colonialism in North Sumatra and comparing each version to find the most proper version, Lifepatch presents the scattered historical fragments and their contrasting attributes to bring up the complexity of history. Furthermore, driven by their pride as a collective-based community with collaboration and interdisciplinary between its members as their work’s core, The Tano Toba Saga is presented by incorporating historical artwork installations and archival material, together with a major narration linking all the exhibits. As part of Lifepatch, I was given the challenge of designing an exhibition layout as a physical element to emphasise the Tano Toba Saga’s major narration. Besides that, I was also presenting the Hans Christoffel ghostly memories through an Installation called “The Lucid Memories“.

Drowning in the stream of history, I’ve been struggling to understand its complexity, which always seems to be spinning and confusing, similar to a maze or a labyrinth. Isn’t just motivated by its contradiction because of the “perspective of view”, the North Sumatra conflict is also a result of connectivity or causality between two or more linear progression lines that each line has its own causality sequence, which is “this happened, and then that happened; that happened because this happened first”. Within this case, both Hans Christoffel and Sisingamangaraja XII, as the two key figures, have their own history line with totally different attributes, such as cultural background, political interest, and so on. Sisingamangaraja XII is the King and religious leader of the Toba People who lived in North Sumatra. On the opposite, Hans Christoffel is a soldier who serves under the Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indische Leger (Netherlands Royal Army) or KNIL. It was a military force that was formed to protect the Dutch interests when expanding their colony’s territories and maintaining their colonial rule in the Dutch East Indies. However, driven by the Dutch Kingdom policies around the early 19th century to bring a conducive atmosphere for economic interest in the East Indische archipelago as their colonization region through unification and pacification, Hans Christoffel, as part of the KNIL, had to collide with the Toba people’s resistance led by Sisingamangaraja XII at a long-term war, so-called the Tapanoeli War. It’s a conflict that occurred for up to 29 years and ended after the death of Sisingamangaraja during his guerrilla resistance.

Talking about the key figures and their connections, there seems to be a tendency that Causality as an orderly sequence of the “cause and effect” within a linear progression line plays a vital role in the Toba Saga exhibition layout design. Spatially, each key figure’s narration is described as like a water stream that flows in opposite directions from a different entry point. The first stream focused on the narrations of the Toba people before the Dutch arrival and afterwards. The opposites stream presents the Hans Christoffel narrations as the Dutch and their policies of colonization representation. Flows through the exhibition room edges, both of the narration streams collide and create swirling flows at the center that are similar to the phenomenon of whirlpools, as the conflict analogy. The whirlpool that continuously flows in a circular direction seems to bring an effect that both the cause and effect become overlapping, each other and blur the details of its individual narrative differences, making it easy to interpret or define differently from various perspectives.

Looking back on the entire research, it revealed that the Tapanoeli war and its complex attributes have a bigger contribution to work as an ambient background and affect the whole process. Its complexity becomes the main reason for questioning the truth and brought us to learn every past narration before the conflict happens and what things that might be causing it. At the same time, it also drove our thoughts when trying to understand how the conflict plays its part either spiritually or physically, forming the North Sumatra people’s way of life in the present. Through this, it reveals the idea that the Tapanoeli war has deeper values rather than only being placed as physical historical archives to present stories about the great historical conflict in North Sumatra during the colonial era. It has an ability or functions as a ghostly imagining that is able to transcend time and space when describing the North Sumatra people’s identity and their way of talking about the past, present, and even the future.

Interested in representing the conflict unseen values as the ghostly imagining, I wanted to use the main vortex spatial design to carry the symbolism. The circular wall, with the whirlpool accentuation engineered with a glass wall on the part that is directly facing the entrance, in order to bring the conflict vortex, could be visually accessible from the entry door. The idea is to introduce the viewer to one of many conflicts during the colonial era in North Sumatra as the exhibition’s main issues and ignite their curiosity about it since they enter the exhibition room. Since it can’t be physically accessed directly, the viewer is forced to walk into the flow of the narration stream and learn the historical narration from a particular perspective before finally reaching the inner vortex. Furthermore, when walking out from the vortex through the opposite stream, the viewer will get a chance to learn the other perspective as a comparison to the former knowledge they already earn or memorized.

Tano Toba Saga Exhibition

Produced as part of “Power And Other Things: Indonesia & Art (1835 – Now)” Europalia Art Festival Indonesia.
Exhibited at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR) of Brussels, Belgium.

Reference Site:
* Details of “Power And Other Things: Indonesia & Art (1835 – Now)” Europalia Art Festival Indonesia on Europalia Art Festival official website
* Details of Tano Toba Saga Exhibition on Metropolism Magazine Online Feature official website.
* Details of Tano Toba Saga Exhibition on Lifepatch official website.

February 28, 2018April 20, 2026 by Wawies - Wisnu Wisdantio

Rumah Dan Halaman (House and courtyard)

The Design of Installation about the collective community organic space based on compromisation and collaboration activities
(2016)

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The Collaboration Projects “Media Conscious” in Asia: Lifepatch ‘Rumah and Halaman’ is activities and installation exhibition at the end 2016 until early 2017 organized by Japan Foundation Asia Center and NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] and held at ICC Gallery B5, Tokyo Opera City Tower, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. Within this project, The ideas of the installation and exhibition design were to talk about The Lifepatch and all its works as a collective that formed in 2012 in Yogyakarta – Indonesia. The things that closely related to all my experiences as a member of The Lifepatch.

icc-panorama-v-02b — The Exhibition Installation of Collaboration Project ‘‘Media Conscious in Asia”: Lifepatch ‘Rumah dan Halaman’

The Lifepatch is a collective community-based that has members with diverse interests and educational backgrounds, such as scientists, programmers, designers, artists, and curators. Since formed in Yogyakarta in 2012, they established a small house as their main place for works, conducts collaborative activities, and develops socially engaged projects related to art, science, and technology based on Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and Do-It-With-Others (DIWO) ethos. The place itself became an important space as a hub for individuals and communities to interact cooperatively through mutual learning, discussion, and meeting.

“Rumah” is an Indonesian word for the house. However, most people in Indonesia include Lifepatch, and many collective communities or organizations who use House as their main space aren’t describing the house as just a type of permanent physical structure with a particular function as a shelter or a Residential Building. There are several attributes that defining it as a “home”, such as self-consciousness, sense of belonging, histories, and a place where the dwellers practicing various ideas of better living concepts through simple hacking as an effort to survive.

When examining thoroughly to presents the works and all activities of Lifepatch, there seems to be a tendency to put The Rumah as The main space to work and interact cooperatively with individuals and communities. As a space of collective community-based, Rumah of Lifepatch also represents its dweller’s strategy as a collective when practising their methods of dwelling in a place where private and public as place values and function can be connected or separated. The first part that also being called “Rumah” is the main area with private value and protected by a particular structure of a building. Basically, Rumah is the representative of its dweller’s internal affairs, which is an organic space that always growing and slightly changing based on the dweller’s effort to organize, compromise, and collaborate with each other to meet all their basic needs, interests, and activities. The second part called the “Halaman” or the courtyard. This part is a transition space provided by the Rumah dwellers to make both of connector and barriers between the concept of private and public. As a connector, the Halaman Rumah is a place for the dweller to meet every external aspect of the Rumah. Contrary, Halaman also became barriers that provide by the Rumah dwellers to protect their private area and all of its internal aspect.

However, talking about The Rumah of Lifepatch as a space for collective community-based, there seems to be a tendency that the Rumah is not just a mere physical structure with a particular function, but as an organic space that lives and slightly changes when projecting the dweller’s lives and activities. Meanwhile, as a form of dialogue, it provides a creative environment within its spaces for its dwellers to conduct creative activities through the works and interaction between the collective members and other community.

The Rumah Dan Halaman (House and courtyard) installation was designed based on those concepts as the reimagination of Lifepatch space with all of its activities, and brought it all into an art gallery space as part of The Collaboration Projects’ “Media Conscious” in Asia between Lifepatch, Japan Foundation Asia Center and NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC].