Highlighting Kon/jun/gsi (meaning conjunction) as its theme, Seek-a-seek’s second series shines a light on the importance of connection between Indonesian designers as a method to grow despite the hefty challenges of the digital era. Through providing a creative offline platform, the two-month-long exhibition organised by local graphic design collectives is presented with a line-up of engaging manoeuvres, ranging from installations, music performances, designer’s talk shows, book fair to curator’s tour.
For the exhibition, forty curated design studios manifest their character and ideas in cubicle-like installations, delivering thrills and prompting interactions between them and the explorers.With Jakarta-based creative consultant The 1984, visitors are welcomed to partake in Material Exploration, driven by the studio’s concern regarding environmentally unfriendly materials. The installation invites comers to build their own through using raw essentials like tapioca and cornstarch, resulting in shapes of peculiar aesthetics. On another installation belonging to Leboye, the tiny cubicle bedecked with worn vintage miscellanies such as old Siemens mobile phone, a tin can designed with icons of ancient wayang figurines, and a stoples (jar) full of wood stamps, traces back the visitors’ memories to forgotten times. MALT Studio, on the other hand, embraced transparency by showing the unanimous reality of being a design studio: flaunting prints of funny (and arguably hurtful) conversations between the designers and their hard-boiled clients, showing that the process of creating is difficult and humanely clumsy.
Seek-A-Seek #2 doesn’t stop at the exhibition. Weekly, they’ve rolled out engaging workshops and talk shows held by the insiders of the design and creative industry in Jakarta. On top of that, the exhibition coincided with sMart Art Market and Jakarta Art Book Fair, which took place on 13-15 December 2019, held at the gallery’s backyard.
Seek-A-Seek has made its point through ‘connecting’ not only the graphic design communities, but also those who felt estranged to the industry. And while one does not have a say in what lies ahead, Seek-A-Seek’s success is a testament to the industry’s promising future.
Seek-a-seek #2 is open at Dia.Lo.Gue Artspace, Jl. Kemang Selatan No. 99A, South Jakarta, until 31 January 2020. For more information on the exhibition, visit @seek_a_seek.
