Mencitra Bara Mewarta Wabah is an attempt to rewrite historical records’ which artistic-political choices have been negotiated. This work juxtapose visualisation of the Banjak village burning through De Pest op Java (1921) by Willy Mulens as an experiment to see this occurrence as an ethical scorched-earth policy with popular memories of similar events that are already known –irreverently– as colonial atrocities such as Puputan Bali, the Aceh War, and the South Bandung incident. This appropriation was also chosen as a response to other simultaneous and related current incidents: the emergence of a global pandemic and the decision of several archival institutions in 2020 to make their collections public domain in response to the rise of online activity in times of socio-physical restrictions.

This project was supported as part of Karya Normal Baru 2020 – Jakarta Biennale