TINTIN WULIA
Tintin Wulia (b.1972, Denpasar, Indonesia) completed her art PhD (RMIT University, 2014) after almost fifteen years of exhibiting internationally. Initially trained as a film composer (BMus, Berklee College of Music, 1997) and architectural engineer (BEng, Universitas Katolik Parahyangan, 1998), she works with video, installation, drawings, painting, sound, dance, text, performance and public interventions. Her interdisciplinary works – particularly on the sociopolitics of mobility and border crossing – are often participatory.
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Wulia has participated in major shows like Istanbul Biennale (2005), Yokohama Triennale (2005), Jakarta Biennale (2006), Jakarta Biennale (2009), Moscow Biennale (2011), Gwangju Biennale (2012), Asia Pacific Triennale (2012), Jogja Biennale (2013), Sharjah Biennale (2013) and survey exhibitions such as ZKM/Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe’s The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989 (also as one of the residency artists, 2011-12). Her work has also been selected and featured in curated sections of major international art fairs including Encounters, Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 and is part of significant public and private collections worldwide including at Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, and He Xiangning Art Gallery. Wulia is an Australia Council for the Arts’ Creative Australia Fellow 2014-16, a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow 2018, and a Postdoctoral Fellow in Crafts, Design and Society at Centre on Global Migration, University of Gothenburg (2018-20) where she is now a Research Project Leader (2021-23).
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Now living and working in Brisbane, Australia and Gothenburg, Sweden, Wulia never stops challenging the ideas of borders and identity all throughout her career. She was recently nominated for International Award for Public Art 2019 and Visible Award 2019, and in 2017 represented Indonesia with solo pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale.
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Violence Against Fruits, 2000
3’04”, 4:3, colour, stereo, single-channel video
1/5 Edition
Why don’t you just eat the dogs instead?
Sit back and relax, watch the disembowelment of Diospyros Kaki in front of your eyes.
Inspired by the May 1998 Jakarta riot.
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Ketok, 2002
5’41”, 4:3, colour, stereo, single-channel video
3/5 and 4/5 Edition
One night, a woman heard a mysterious knock on the door of her house. The other night, her husband heard the same mysterious knock. This short film narrates their story, spoken in Indonesian and with Indonesian cultural references, with a particular visual language that the artist/filmmaker associates with an Indonesian culture of fear.
Everything's OK, 2003
4’52”, 4:3, colour, stereo, single-channel video
5/5 Edition
This little film is curiously simple. If you didn’t look closely enough, you would think it was made by children.
Its simple means. The contagious fun.
A Thousand and One Martian Nights, 2017
38”01’ loop, 16:9
colour, stereo, single-channel video installation with surveillance camera, telematic-twinned
Dimensions variable
1/3 Edition
A Thousand and One Martian Nights mixes facts, fiction, and live-stream capture of the screening space. It is a series of stories about the aftermath of a political turmoil taking place in the year 2065 that led to an internment camp on Mars, discussed by the survivors and their children’s generation a hundred years later in 2165. The stories are adapted from the artist’s and actors’ real-life experiences and memoirs, interweaved with NASA footage that documents 1965 as their most successful year thus far in interplanetary research and missions.
This video installation was part of the artist’s solo pavilion representing Indonesia at 57th Venice Biennale, “1001 Martian Homes”, with 2 other works (“Under the Sun” and “Not Alone”), all shown with their telematic twins in a replica of the pavilion in Senayan City, Jakarta, Indonesia.