Tristan Tanaya
Jul 16, 2026
Gajah Gallery Jakarta presents Menamai | Naming, a solo exhibition by Indonesian artist Octora that examines how colonial systems of knowledge continue to shape contemporary ways of seeing. Through a new body of work encompassing photography, weaving, sculpture, and installation, the exhibition considers how acts of naming and representation continue to inform understandings of Indonesian cultural identity.
The exhibition is informed in part by the artist's early encounter with photographs related to the May 1998 anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia, an experience that has become a lasting point of inquiry in her practice.
Working with archival photographs and ethnographic records, Octora approaches the photograph as both historical document and constructed image. Images are cut apart, woven, and reassembled, interrupting the authority of the archive and the systems of knowledge through which it was produced. Underpinning the exhibition is the recognition that looking is never neutral: every image reflects a particular position, and every act of viewing is conditioned by inherited ways of seeing.
Alongside these works are sculptures that extend the exhibition's inquiry into naming and classification. The Flower That Remembers, Octora's first aluminium sculpture produced in collaboration with Yogya Art Lab, centres on Rafflesia arnoldii, reconsidering the histories embedded within its name and the authority that naming confers.
