{"id":3708,"date":"2026-10-20T04:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T08:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/taring-padis-second-chapter-at-ibraaz-focuses-on-land-and-labor-battles\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T04:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T08:15:09","slug":"taring-padis-second-chapter-at-ibraaz-focuses-on-land-and-labor-battles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/taring-padis-second-chapter-at-ibraaz-focuses-on-land-and-labor-battles\/","title":{"rendered":"Taring Padi\u0019s Second Chapter at Ibraaz Focuses on Land and Labor Battles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second chapter of Taring Padi\u0019s exhibition Rakyat Pasti Menang (The People United Will Never Be Defeated) is currently on view at Ibraaz, London, until October 18. In a conversation with Alexander Supartono\u0014an early member of the Indonesian collective and an associate professor at Edinburgh Napier University\u0014the chapter is framed around land justice and workers\u0019 rights, bringing together six banners from 1997 to 2012 alongside 12 rontek<\/em> (\u001csmall banners\u001d) from 2023.<\/p>\n

Land, labor, and the archive they rebuild<\/h2>\n

Supartono describes how the focus emerged from revisiting the collective\u0019s archive after the 1998 Reformasi. Based in Yogyakarta\u0014a largely agricultural region and Indonesia\u0019s second-most popular tourist destination after Bali\u0014Taring Padi has long worked with laborers, peasant communities, and Indigenous groups. The group\u0019s manifesto cites the struggle for environmental justice, which, in practice, has meant aligning with Indigenous land rights and responding to invitations from communities to address specific hardships. Peasant iconography accordingly recurs throughout their work.<\/p>\n

Exhibitions also serve as a way to rebuild what\u0019s been lost. The 1999 banner Rebut Kembali Hak Rakyat Atas Pengembangan Kebudayaan Rakyat<\/em> (Reclaim People\u0019s Right to Establish People\u0019s Culture) was remade in 2022 for Documenta 15 after earlier banners, often borrowed as political tools, failed to return\u0014particularly between 1998 and 2002. For Ibraaz, the collective also recreated two banners. Marsinah<\/em> (1997\u0013\u0011998) commemorates the 24-year-old trade unionist murdered in 1993; in Taring Padi\u0019s Yogyakarta studio, their exhibition space is named Bilik Marsinah. Supartono contrasts her frequent role as a protagonist in their imagery with Suharto\u0019s place as an antagonist figure. He notes that on November 10 last year, both Marsinah and Suharto were declared National Heroes of Indonesia, with both families present at the Indonesian Presidential Palace\u0014a move he characterizes as a political stunt by the Prabowo administration that only underlines the need to support genuine workers\u0019 movements.<\/p>\n

Woodcuts, shared iconography, and global alliances<\/h2>\n

Taring Padi\u0019s first collaboratively made woodcuts are the banner diptych Buruh Bersatu<\/em> (Workers United) and Tanah & Petani Merdeka Menghidupi Semua<\/em> (Farmers Give Life to All) (both 2003), joined here by Naikkan Upah Buruh<\/em> (Raise Workers\u0019 Wages) (2008). While A3\/A4 woodcut posters are typically produced individually and submitted anonymously into the collective\u0019s body of work, large-scale woodcuts are made together. Their visual language has evolved in parallel across woodcut prints, cardboard puppets, and large-scale banners, with recurring figures\u0014including Marsinah\u0014shaped by political topics and collaborations with communities. In response to post-9\/11 geopolitics, antagonistic elements such as the American flag entered their imagery.<\/p>\n

In the past four years, their international profile has expanded after Documenta 15, with solo shows in Amsterdam, Brisbane, and Venice, and invitations to the 2027 Yokohama Triennale. Institutions including the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth and Tate Modern in London have begun collecting their work. As one strategy amid this visibility, they have partnered with trade unions: in 2025 with the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) and FLAI in Rome, producing Basta Schiavitu<\/em> (Stop Slavery) about Sikh migrant workers, later used by CGIL as a backdrop in political actions and meetings, including a court action for a worker who died in the field. They joined Culture in Resistance at Wortley Hall last April and will work with Masahat in Oslo and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions next year on a banner about migrant workers. Banners from this international period will appear in the exhibition\u0019s third chapter.<\/p>\n

At Ibraaz, the second chapter clarifies how Taring Padi\u0019s art labor remains anchored in alliances with workers and peasants, turning banners and woodcuts into tools for collective memory and action.<\/p>\n

V\u00eda artasiapacific.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Ibraaz, London, Taring Padi\u0019s Rakyat Pasti Menang presents six banners from 1997\u00132012 and 12 rontek from 2023, with Alexander Supartono outlining the chapter\u0019s focus on land justice and workers\u0019 rights, key remakes like Rebut Kembali, and the collective\u0019s woodcut practice and global union alliances.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happening-now"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}