Jakarta’s Museum MACAN Returns With Art Exploring Technology and Power

JAKARTA, Indonesianpost.com — Museum MACAN will reopen its galleries on November 14, 2026, unveiling five exhibitions at the modern and contemporary art museum in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta. The program includes Tromarama’s first museum-scale exhibition in Indonesia, a special presentation by Iwan Effendi, a newly commissioned work by British artist Libby Heaney in partnership with the British Council, and a work by Mira Rizki in the museum’s Children’s Art Space.

Museum MACAN director Venus Lau described working with the artists as a meaningful experience for the institution.

“Each artist brings a different perspective and set of questions, sometimes intersecting, sometimes revealing tensions. For us, it is important to make room for these differences,” Lau said at a media preview on November 12, 2026.

“Contemporary art does not always provide answers, but it can encourage us to look again at things we have long considered normal, familiar or inevitable,” she added.

The five exhibitions explore how technology, political power, objects and our surroundings shape our actions, choices and ways of seeing the world.

The following exhibitions will run at Museum MACAN through April 4, 2027:

1. Tromarama: Ketok Magic

“Ketok Magic” is Tromarama’s first museum-scale exhibition in Indonesia, marking two decades of the collective’s artistic practice. Founded in Bandung in 2006 by Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans and Ruddy Hatumena, Tromarama works across video, stop-motion animation, found objects, programming and installation. Its work examines how technology shapes human perception and behavior, as well as the relationship between the physical and virtual worlds.

2. Eko Nugroho: Scenic Disorder

A prominent figure in Indonesian contemporary art, Eko Nugroho combines traditional Indonesian craft with the visual language of street art and comics. Emerging amid Indonesia’s profound social and political upheaval at the turn of the millennium, his practice explores tensions between individuals and collective structures—a recurring theme in work presented internationally.

Nugroho has held major solo exhibitions at institutions including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Asia Society Museum in New York. He also participated in the 55th Venice Biennale.

3. Iwan Effendi: Pulse for Pulse

Visual artist Iwan Effendi works at the intersection of puppetry, drawing, painting and performance. He co-founded Papermoon Puppet Theatre with Maria Tri Sulistyani in Yogyakarta in 2006. His practice explores movement, bodily experience, memory and the three-way relationship between objects, puppeteers and audiences.

4. British Council’s Artist Innovation Commissions: Libby Heaney — Qave Qonsciousness

London-based artist Libby Heaney, who holds a doctorate in quantum physics, is a pioneer in using quantum computing as an artistic medium. Her practice spans virtual reality, moving images, glass and public sculpture. Combining artificial intelligence and quantum systems, she creates dreamlike imagery rooted in bodily experience, connecting fluid forms and emotional landscapes with broader networks and systems.

5. Museum MACAN Children’s Art Space: Mira Rizki — Mawas Wawas

Mira Rizki is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice centers on sound, vibration and listening. Moving beyond hearing alone, her work explores sound as a physical sensation and a means of connection, linking people to the spaces they inhabit, the materials around them and their memories. [Detik/Bilah]