Children's Art Space
Citra Sasmita: Tales of Nowhere
UOB Museum MACAN Children’s Art Space Commission presents latest installation work by Citra Sasmita. Now available to be accessed from anywhere online and soon at Museum MACAN.
15.12.2020–23.01.2021
Take yourself to Tales of Nowhere, Citra Sasmita's latest installation for UOB Museum MACAN Children’s Art Space Commission.
Citra imagines a kingdom of mythical animals, which she painted on a majestic, eight-meter-long Kamasan Balinese canvas scroll — available to experience online through a digitized content, and soon to be available offline at Museum MACAN and several other public sites.
Each animal in this large painting has its own distinctive character. Among them are a slender deer, known to be wise in Balinese folklore, and a tiger as a nod to Museum MACAN (the Museum’s acronym means tiger in bahasa Indonesia).
All of these characters are nameless. Museum MACAN and Citra Sasmita invite you to participate in an interactive online activity on Museum MACAN's Instagram page to name those nameless animal characters!
Citra Sasmita also encourage children to create their own stories with the animals they have encountered in her stories.
Virtual Exhibition
Virtual Tour 360-degree developed by
Interactive Virtual Storybook
Interactive Virtual Storybook developed by
Within and beyond Indonesia, children and their families will be able to listen to Citra Sasmita as she reads fables from Tales of Nowhere. Her stories will be brought to life with the use of web augmented reality (WebAR) technology designed by local company Festivo, so that viewers can also experience the fables online by accessing Museum MACAN’s website.
In Tales of Nowhere, animals will come alive through a 360° virtual tour, face tattoos as Instagram filters developed by AR and VR specialist Octagon Studio, and a WebAR feature that enables children to play with the animals.
Artist's Message
“Tales of Nowhere is a representation of the pure world of childhood. It provides a safe space for children to get to know a new environment and new characters, while exploring their most valuable treasure, namely their imagination.
The stories will share with children the value of kindness, peace, compassion and leadership. As children, we first learned these traits through stories told by our grandparents, passed on to our parents. We then pass them to our own children as bedtime stories and one day they will continue the legacy.
These classic fables will evoke the treasured memories of our childhood.”
About the Artist
Citra Sasmita is a contemporary artist from Bali whose work focuses on unravelling the myths and misconceptions of Balinese art and culture. She is also deeply invested in questioning a woman’s place in social hierarchy and seeks to upend normative construct of gender. Born in Bali, Indonesia on 30 March 1990, Citra studied Literature at Udayana University (2008) and was enrolled in the Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences, Ganesha University of Education, where she majored in Physics Education.
Part of her long-term Timur Merah Project was presented in the ‘Garden of Six Seasons’ (2020) exhibition by Para/Site in Hong Kong, featuring a painting on cow’s hide that reflects the Kamasan Balinese painterly language that Citra has been developing in her practice. While rooted in mythological thinking with Hindu and Balinese specific references, her practice involves a contemporary process of imagining a secular and empowered mythology for post-patriarchal future.
Highlights in her career include being awarded as the Gold Award Winner at UOB Painting of The Year 2017, exhibited at the Biennale Jogja XV (2019) and a solo exhibition ‘Ode To The Sun’ (2020) at Yeo Workshop, Singapore.
