When
Where
The Cross Art Projects
8 Llankelly Pl
Potts Point NSW 2011
Australia
Why
Join us at 2pm for the opening and a conversation with Sophie Chao (Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, USYD), who writes on the adverse impacts of deforestation and industrial oil palm expansion across the customary lands and territories of the Marind communities in Merauke Regency, West Papua.
West Papua is not an empty land relays conversations, critique, and shared cultural knowledge amongst leading artists and voices from Indonesia’s post-colonial and environmental movements. Artists from three activist groups—Taring Padi formed in 1998, Udeido in 2018, and Alyakha Kolektif formed a year later—use painting, woodblock, film and sound art with acuity and spirit, to amplify awareness of accelerating land theft in West Papua to regional audiences.
The exhibition centrepiece is the documentary film Pesta Babi: Colonialism in Our Time (2026) directed by journalist Dandhy Laksono and anthropologist Cypri Dale. It focuses on the escalation in land clearing concessions in Papua under president Prabowo Subianto and his predecessor Joko Widodo. Papua hosts the world’s third-largest rainforest and wetlands and is a global biodiversity shield. Deforestation on the island relentlessly continues as Indonesia seeks to maintain its position as the world’s leading producer of palm oil.
Visit crossart.com.au for more information.
Contact
The Cross Arts Projects
(02) 9357 2058
[email protected]
crossart.com.au
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