Constellations: Global Reflections is the first museum-quality exhibition created especially for B20 and G20 summit visitors. With an audience of world political and economic leaders, this is a unique opportunity for artists to use their voice to articulate pressing social and global issues through their art. Beyond that, it is a distinctive platform for personal and cultural representation and dialogue for the general public to see.
The twenty-one participating artists are the voice and Constellations: Global Reflections is their vehicle. In this way, Constellations: Global Reflections aligns with the Art World’s history of activism. The invited artists were challenged to not only create a visually stunning artwork but encouraged to embed narratives about climate change, equity, responsibility and important topics relevant to them. Further, they will inspire a metaphorical conversation with world leaders regarding controversial subjects and global debates. The exhibition is the artistic embodiment of the G20 and will provide emerging and internationally renowned artists with a mechanism by which they can put their own passions, philosophies, and values into a living reflection of cultural diversity, international collaboration, and necessary inclusion.
Constellations: Global Reflections is the first museum-quality exhibition created especially for B20 and G20 summit visitors. With an audience of world political and economic leaders, this is a unique opportunity for artists to use their voice to articulate pressing social and global issues through their art. Beyond that, it is a distinctive platform for personal and cultural representation and dialogue for the general public to see.
The twenty-one participating artists are the voice and Constellations: Global Reflections is their vehicle. In this way, Constellations: Global Reflections aligns with the Art World’s history of activism. The invited artists were challenged to not only create a visually stunning artwork but encouraged to embed narratives about climate change, equity, responsibility and important topics relevant to them. Further, they will inspire a metaphorical conversation with world leaders regarding controversial subjects and global debates. The exhibition is the artistic embodiment of the G20 and will provide emerging and internationally renowned artists with a mechanism by which they can put their own passions, philosophies, and values into a living reflection of cultural diversity, international collaboration, and necessary inclusion.
The participants of Constellations: Global Reflections are among the most celebrated and visionary artistic minds of the world. Each artist's interpretation through their artworks will bring life to their national and cultural traditions. They will then blend these qualities with Indonesia’s long history of arts and crafts. Each artwork was digitally printed on a textile made from recycled plastic and integrated in a massive, rotating lantern-like sculpture. With representation from every corner of the globe, each artist contributed their own personal aesthetic and voice to the highly anticipated exhibition. As the greatest nations of the world slowly overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and seek to achieve new heights in a global network, interwoven like the fabrics of a textile, Constellations: Global Reflections will promote connectivity through facets of international aid and mutual respect. Each artist is the metaphorical threads of a greater work and will promote individualism through connectivity. The artists highlight the greatest challenges the world continues to face and each artwork, as its own masterpiece and in unity with others, will reinforce a sense of global and cultural cooperation.
Constellations: Global Reflections takes form through a collaborative art-making process and reflects a unity of passions, creativity, and ideas. Local artisans fabricated the artworks. In tandem with this process and working with each artist remotely, our environmental effects are self consciously minimal. This manner of curating was greatly inspired by the exhibition site of Kura Kura Bali whose ethos is about creating a better future and cleaner planet.
My visits to Bali well over a decade ago created lasting memories and left a huge impact on my way of life. After all these years, when invited to conceive an exhibition, I remembered the many studio visits I had with local artists, artisans and crafts people. Balinese textiles, lanterns, and Wayang, a traditional form of puppet theater, were key to the development of my concept. Both visible during the day and at night, these sculptures for Constellations: Global Reflections take on a quiet, reverent quality and will act as beacons calling people from around the world to come together to see art and discuss ways of creating a better and stronger future.
Indonesia’s past, present, and future depict the way it’s people pursue life, spirituality, and their way of co-existing with each other and the land. Indonesia is the living, breathing body of the Tri Hita Karana philosophy of happiness and harmony. The country, its people’s culture, and the Balinese way of life is significant of these virtues and values. Constellations: Global Reflections aims to amplify this important philosophy though a unique and Indonesian-inspired public art exhibition. Art does not dictate, nor does it govern. Constellations is aligned with these values.
Lance M. Fung, June 2022
