IO – Tourist and artistic destinations are slowly reopening to the public, as the Restriction of Community Activities (Pemberlakuan Pembatasan Kegiatan Masyarakat – “PPKM”) in the Jakarta area is lowered to Leve 1. Want to make use of this freedom, either by yourself or with family and friends, but not sure what to do? Here’s our selection of three unique “getaway” destinations for you, right here in the capital. Don’t forget to constantly follow health protocols when visiting public places, though. The COVID-19 virus is still a global scourge, even now.
MACAN, the Roaring National Contemporary Art Museum
MACAN, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara. (Also, the Indonesian name for “tiger”). Located on Jalan Perjuangan, Kebun Jeruk, West Jakarta, it was one of the places listed in Time magazine’s Top 100 Tourist Destinations Worldwide in 2018. First open to the public in November 2017, it is the first museum in Indonesia dedicated to the housing the works of modern and contemporary local and international artists, including rare pieces that global collectors failed to capture. There’s so much to see within the 4,000 square meter display area, within a total 7,107 square meter area.
The latest exhibition in the museum focuses on Solo artist Melati Suryodarmo. She is known for her phenomenal “Why Let the Chicken Run?” performance in 2001. To welcome the reopening of MACAN Museum to the public, she performs a number of promising monologs, starting from the theatrical act “Alé Lino” (2003), where she held her balance and leaned on a four-meter pole placed near her solar plexus, and a showing of her 2000 work “Exergie-Butter Dance” in mid-November.
During the dance, Melati dramatically slipped and fell repeatedly, as she attempted to dance on blocks of butter. “The ‘Excergie-Butter Dance’ is my attempt to explore and express the sensations of the body as it experiences the ‘delicate moment’ of losing control just before it falls,” she said.
While in the “Eins und Eins” (2016), she dipped her face into a basin full of black ink, sucked a bit of the ink into her mouth, then spat out the ink all over the stage and created a bizarre sort of “abstract painting”. She was expressing how the human body can contort aggressively under pressure before purging everything out.
Disrupto Digital Hub
Disrupto Digital Hub is located at The Breeze complex, BSD City. It is an ecosystem for innovative ideas from the younger generation who seek to solve human life challenges by focusing on the three major fields of science, technology, and business. It operates as an activity: festival, multipurpose venue, and online media at its www.disrupto.co.id website.
In order to present itself as a creative space filled with artistic touches, Disrupto collaborates with Connected Art Platform (CAP) to create a space that the public can enjoy. The merger between these two creative start-up platforms presents six new media installations that are both interesting and visually astounding. In their effort to manifest Disrupto’s eight vision pillars, they brought in three renowned Indonesian contemporary artists to present their vision in digital technology-based creative installations around the three distinct spaces.
The first space visitors can experience is Ady Setiawan’s installation “Me.ro.tan.”, which represents Indonesian local wisdom for natural conservation in an urban context. Rattan blades are arranged to form a natural cave or grotto, which then projects a visual animation as the blades are moved digitally.
In the second space, we have “Mirum Voltus v.2.0.” by Notan Lab. This installation integrates a number of cubes that display digital images of mandalas on each side. These mandalas shine patterns of lights calibrated by the dynamics of social media activity generated when a certain word or hashtag is published in a social media status somewhere.
And in the final space, there are four artistic videos jointly designed by Wivisual and CAP: “Finding Space”, “Fortune, Power, and Health”, “Voyage”, and “Human Upgrade: Our Body and Our Days”. These videos are represented by four pillars, each containing a monitor that “prints” out pieces of the images shown on screen on huge blank sheets of paper hung throughout the room.
This art exhibition is also meant to underscore the narrative role of technology in social reality, environmental awareness, and refection to the human behavior nowadays. It is open every day – that’s right, Monday through Sunday from 10.00 a.m. to 21.00 p.m. WIB every day. Tickets are highly affordable at IDR 10,000.00, purchasable online in marketplaces.
Kiki-Koko World
Kiki-Koko World, a family attraction open every day from 11.00 a.m. to 21.00 p.m. WIB at Summarecon Mall Bekasi, until 6 March 2022. Naturally quite affordable with tickets at IDR 35,000.00 per person.
Ugi Cahyono, Center Director of Summarecon Mall Bekasi, declared during the opening that this attraction is open for the public without age limitations. “However, we request that children younger than 12 be watched over by their parents or other adults while they are on a ride. To make sure that we can properly maintain physical distancing for everyone’s safety, we divide play time into 13 sessions of 30 minutes each, and we only allow a maximum of 50 persons in each session,” he said.
When visitors come to the ground foor exhibition area, they can see the minimalist house replica that serves as Kiki-Koko World’s ticket counter – and the house façade that guards the exhibition.
Kiki-Koko is a cute house divided into rooms that are life-sized dioramas of a soothing, serene life being led: the Living Room, where visitors are greeted with the sight of Koko the bear relaxing and reading a book; the Dining Room and Kitchen, where bears Koko and Kiki prepare a meal together; the Swimming Pool, where visitors can relax at the poolside watching the bears splash around.
There are also other areas: the Classroom, where Kiki and Koko study with their friends; the lovely and refreshingly Garden; and the Beach and the Disco Party areas. And finally, the Mirror Labyrinth is an exciting, fun way for visitors to depart from the exhibition.