Interview with Shinse Robert - what a rip-off fortune teller

2014

EXHIBITED AT: Cemeti Art House, as part of 1x25Hours curated by Mitha Budhyarto, Jogjakarta, 2014

CONTEXT: 1 x 25 Hours involved 12 artists to work in response to Cemeti Art House’s 25th anniversary celebration. Although, the exhibition was geared at revealing non-chronological fragments from the two and a half decades’ history of the organization. All of the 12 artists nonetheless have generated works that responded to specific themes of Cemeti’s 25-year history: from its initial stages, Cemeti’s practice as an institution including its various programmes, its transitional phase as seen through the move from its previous site, to a prediction of its future as an alternative art space.

The exhibition was spread out over 7 “stages” and at Ardi Gunawan’s stage themed, “The Future of Cemeti” - involved a fortuneteller to predict the organization’s future.

 EXHIBITION NOTES: Considering Cemeti Art House’s strategic location – its proximity to touristic Kraton, Jl. Prawirotaman, and Jl. Malioboro as well as other cultural institutions such as Indonesia Visual Art Archive, Kunci Cultural Studies Centre and Kedai Kebun Forum – it may not be a farfetched contention that gentrification could be a problem that Cemeti will face in the future. Here, Ardi Gunawan has hired two architects to hypothesize Cemeti’s position as lenient towards rather than reacting against the aggressive approach of real estate developers.

The accompanying text in the images were transcripts from an interview that Ardi conducted with a fortune teller, whom he consulted to forecast the prospect of Cemeti’s surrounding area in terms of business and commercial likelihood.

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