There is A Landscape on Your Skin

2024
Scanned Texture, Video, Sound, Digital Print on Paper

There is a Landscape on Your Skin is a collection of textures and sounds from the megalithic stones of LoreLindu and the ruins of buildings collapsed by the 2018 earthquake and tsunami in Palu. This work explores the geological and historical connections between these two distant sites through the lens of natural phenomena. The textures, imprinted with graphite on paper, represent the landscape, tectonic faults, and material memory of these events, while the sounds are environmental recordings from the sites, capturing the atmosphere during the creation of the textures.

The megaliths in Lore Lindu, carved by Austronesian ancestors 2,500 years ago, are interpreted in various ways—as worship sites, prehistoric artifacts, and even tourist attractions. Meanwhile, the ruins in Palu are remnants of the earthquake, reminding us of the shifting earth and rising seas. Both are linked by the Palu-Koro Fault, which, in local mythology, is seen as a giant dragon whose movements shake the stones and buildings, causing them to shift, collapse, or be swallowed by liquefaction.