Terrakota Route

As part of the launch of the 2022 Biennial, members of Indonesian artist collective Jatiwangi art Factory (JaF) come together for a mobile multimedia performance featuring original sound pieces and live activations. JaF’s artistic practice emphasizes local rural life in relation to land and the terracotta industry in the Jatiwangi district, Indonesia. For the people of Jatiwangi, tanah (translated loosely to English as earth, soil, or land) is an essential element that has supported lives and local ecosystems for decades. Using clay derived from the earth to fashion instruments, JaF’s ceramic music ensemble, LAIR, invites audiences to share in a collective celebration and defence of tanah in the face of state development projects that claim occupied spaces and neglect voices of communities. Inspired by the traditional obrog-obrog played each morning throughout the village of Jatisura in West Java, Indonesia to mark the beginning of Ramadan, the performance also ushers in a time of fasting, introspection, and prayer observed by many Muslim community members in Toronto.

Terrakota Route is a part of The Shape of Sound, a curatorial project organized by Sebastian De Line as a part of the 2022 Curatorial Fellowship program, made possible by the generous support of TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment, and in partnership with the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, and the Gardiner Museum.

Image credit: Jatiwangi art Factory, Terrakotta Route, March 26, 2022. Program held at Small Arms Inspection Building as part of Toronto Biennial of Art 2022. Photography: Rebecca Tisdelle-Macias.