Tiba Tanpa Berangkat

The history of knowledge production in Indonesia reveals a hierarchical relationship between subject and object: those in power produce and claim knowledge, while others are rendered as its source and simultaneously as the exploited. From the colonial era to the New Order, from the establishment of botanical gardens to state research institutions in the postcolonial period, knowledge was never produced in a neutral space. It was generated and disseminated within structures of power that shaped how we understand nature, science, technology, and the future.

The exhibition Tiba tanpa Berangkat (Arriving without Departing) departs from this awareness—that knowledge in Indonesia has always been shaped by the interrelations between science, the state, and imagination. The title refers to a paradoxical condition that has long shadowed the history of knowledge production in this country: we seem to have arrived at the promised future without ever truly departing from the lingering past.

The works of Maharani Mancanagara and Nurrachmat Widyasena reveal two interwoven temporal directions. Mancanagara traces the colonial roots of knowledge, while Widyasena looks toward the ever-delayed horizon of the future.

Chabib Duta Hapsoro