Tita Salina
Born 1973, Sumatra, Indonesia
Lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia

Irwan Ahmett
Born 1975, Java, Indonesia
Lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia

Tita Salina and Irwan Ahmett collect stories, stage public interventions and deliver narratives through performance and installation works. Their practice is based on travelling and working closely with communities in public spaces, combining research with imagined histories to question our relationships across micro and macro environments and timelines.

Since 2018, Salina and Ahmett have undertaken an annual ritual of walking the coastline of North Jakarta for 15 days, covering approximately 42km. From these journeys — and in the context of Jakarta’s history, alongside the current threat of land subsidence and rising sea levels — the artists developed Garuda Berkepala Naga (The Dragon-headed Garuda). The work is inspired by the planned Garuda-shaped island development in Jakarta Bay, through which the artists track the historical context of Nusantara (Indonesian archipelago). In the form of a narrated film that meanders along Jakarta coastal shores and through communities, and a collection of objects found along the way, Salina and Ahmett draw new narratives of the north coast of Jakarta — from ancient history towards a precarious imagined future.