Erica Jocelyn Suwandi
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Erica Jocelyn Suwandi (b. 2005, Jakarta, Indonesia) is a young, multidisciplinary artist currently based in Singapore. She experiments with the materiality of textile to not only explore her identity as a Chinese Indonesian, but also to unearth the buried histories in Indonesia. She has participated in several exhibitions, including Menagerie at The Photographic Society of Singapore, Singapore, Stories of Care (Cycle #4): Everything in Between at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore, done in partnership with Assisi Hospice Singapore, and NAFA x UAL Student Exhibition at Chelsea College of the Arts, London.
She is currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Fine Art programme at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, in partnership with the University of Arts London. Her most recent work transcends the materiality of textile, taking away its fluidity to act as corporeal archives, embodying the historical violence in Indonesia while giving agency to vernacular voices.
The materiality of fabric allows me to explore different aspects of my Chinese Indonesian identity. I have taken advantage of the fabric’s ability to tear, burn, and be re-stitched to talk about the violence that happened in the May 1998 riots in Indonesia and the scars it left on the Chinese Indonesian community, seen in the work 明亮的拂晓 (Bright Dawn). Besides this, in “This is All I Have Left”, I have used these properties of fabric to portray the fragility of memory in relation to my Chinese culture, along with the complex relationship I have with my Chinese heritage. Playing with the materiality of fabric once again, the work “Jejak Ingatan” utilizes fabric as a simulacrum of the human body, embodying the historical violence in Indonesia and the scars it left on victims. Each of these works serves as a reminder that, as part of a marginalized community, there are still ways to resist oppressive powers.
Title: Yang Terbakar Bukan Hanya Tanah (What Burned was not just a Landscape)
Year: 2026
Medium: Organza, bricks
Statement:
“Tubuh-Tanah Air”, an expression used by the Mollo people in Timor that translates to Body-Land Water, refers to living spaces, and as a whole, the Indonesian homeland. Using this expression to frame my work, the body becomes more than a physical form; it carries landscapes that have been scarred, deformed, and historically violated.
Inflicting a constellation of violence on both the landscape and the body, the work adopts counter-mapping as a method through the act of melting organza. This landscape is appropriated onto the body with the insistence to remember the injustices that have never been acknowledged, such as the 1965 massacre, the 1998 riots, and the 2025 protests.