Mella Jaarsma’s unique practice intersects sculpture, clothing, architecture, and installation. Her works explore the transformative and always pushes against conventional limits in art. Drawing on aesthetic, material, and cultural histories from her adopted home, Jaarsma is also concerned with retrieving lost histories of making and meaning. In Barkcloth-Dark Cloth she continues the earlier series At First There’s Black. Working in collaboration with the artist Agus Ongge from the province of Papua, this installation is an inquiry into tensions between authenticity and commodification. Employing the material of barkcloth, the installation evokes its traditional use as blankets, loin cloth, and sarongs.  As paintings on barkcloth are now used for tourist markets, the history of beaten bark for clothing can be forgotten or erased. Two accompanying videos provide insights into this collaboration and the vexed histories of tradition and modernity amidst colonialism and different nationalist governments in Indonesia.

BAB 2024 acknowledges Embassy of the Netherlands in Thailand and ROH Projects, Jakarta, for their support with the participation of these artists.