Sunyata: The Poetics of Emptiness
Indonesia Pavilion, 2018 Architecture Biennale
Ritualisation is one of the primitive placemaking agencies. It puts human at the center of architectural operation by comprehending order as an instrument connecting human and the world. This establishment of order becomes the core operational method, as opposed to emphasising the primacy of form that evidently discriminates other senses and pleasures of the only one: the eyes.
As David Michael Levin points out that the will to power of the eyes is so strong to the extent of having “tendency in vision to grasp and fixate, to reify, and totalise; a tendency to dominate, secure, and control”. Hence, architectural experience is trapped by this visual centric approach and geometrical gimmicks. The pavilion Sunyata aims to demonstrate a production of architectural space by embracing Emptiness as a cultural-based method to liberate spatial experience from ocularcentrism and oppression of grids.
By emphasising to the very core of volumetric spatial order instead of the elemental ones, an interplay of scale-proportion and tactility are the main apparatus to make the exhibition engaging to the audience.
-La Biennale di Venezia
Commissioner: Ricky Joseph Pesik, Badan Ekonomi Kreatif (Bekraf), Indonesian Creative Economy Agency and Ahmad Djuhara -Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia (IAI), Indonesian Institute of Architects
Curators: Ary Indrajanto, David Hutama, Adwitya Dimas Satria, Ardy Hartono, Jonathan Aditya Gahari, Johanes Adika Gahari