Lift Minahasa Culture, Natasha Tontey Holds First Single Exhibition At MACAN Museum

JAKARTA - Perupa Natasha Tontey held her first single exhibition at the MACAN Museum, with the title Primate Visions: Macaque Macabre. In this exhibition, Natasha Tontey raised the culture of her hometown of Minahasa, which was made in multimedia works.

This work is the work of a commission for Audemars Piguet Contemporary, which was realized in collaboration between the internal curatorial team and Tontey and the MACAN Museum. Natasha said it took about a year to prepare for the exhibition.

A year to prepare for this exhibition. Actually the MACAN Museum is inviting. This is actually part of my research for years to explore Minahasa culture," said Natasha Tontey, during a press conference at the MACAN Museum, West Jakarta, on Thursday, November 14, 2024.

In the work, Natasha Tontey refers to her participation in ritual practices, as well as her observation of the social norms in force in Minahasa. He said that the Minahasa people saw several things in a unique way and wanted to inform them through his exhibition.

"How Minahasa people navigate their lives with nature, because what Minahasa people see is not like in the city, everything is related to nature," he said.

Tontey explored the relationship between the population of black macaque monkeys native to South Minahasa, called yaki, and local indigenous peoples. The prototype presents a fictional universe in the form of films and installations, which questions the symbiotic relationship between animals and humans.

Yaki is considered by indigenous peoples as part of the structure of everyday social life, as well as a pest because he often goes down to the village and steals crops. Tontey's work seeks to dismantle the bias and relationship between humans and animals, imagining a world that allows for the creation of a deeper understanding between species.

Through speculative fiction, I seek to explore the interconnected dynamics between primatology, ecopheminism, and technology. Naratology and immersive experiences highlight a complicated network, a complicated relationship between humans and yaki, which reflects complicated inter-species interactions, and encourages viewers to reflect on the relationship between themselves and the non-human world, "he explained.

At this exhibition, Natasha Tontey also features a video that comes from the original set of films. Starting from costumes to a number of background devices to bring audiences to explore further into the film's narrative when interacting with these objects in their fantastic environment.

The video applies the quality of the class B film format, horror film, and the method of production of self-employment theatrical. The exhibition, which opens November 16, 2024, until April 6, 2025, places Tontey's work in the long tradition of Indonesian film production driven by creative energy.