The Lab is a platform for introducing research in progress in various formats, different temporalities and modalities of expression.
Invisible to the human eye, geological kinships flow under the oceans and lay deep into the earth’s crust. When they manifest themselves, it is often in apocalyptic forms that disrupt existing ecosystems and the course of human life. In geography, The Ring of Fire denotes the volcanic belt and the collision zone of tectonic plates running around the edges of the Pacific Ocean, a deadly area where the majority of the world’s earthquakes and eruptions occur. For Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina, this geologically unstable territory demarcates a field of artist inquiry.
Since 2014, the Indonesian duo have embarked upon a journey that engages issues of social injustice, political struggles, colonial histories, and environmental crises encountered along erratic routes that stretch from Indonesia to New Zealand, from Taiwan and South Korea to Japan. The Ring of Fire (2014–ongoing) brings together for the first time the most significant works realised by the artists, either together or individually, since the inception of the project.
BIOGRAPHIES
An artist duo based in Jakarta, Indonesia, Irwan Ahmett (b.1975) and Tita Salina (b.1973) have been working together since 2010. Their ephemeral interventions articulate sharp social commentaries on urgent issues concerning urban development, ecological catastrophes, political repression, colonial legacies, and the exploitation of human and ecological resources. Spanning from the prankish to the subversive, the duo can mobilise playfulness in the public sphere, irony in radioactive sites, and empathy in relation to conditions of human and environmental vulnerability. Their work has been exhibited at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan (2018); Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland (2017); ST PAUL St Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand (2016); amongst other international venues.
Ahmett and Salina were Artists-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore in March 2018.