Taman Nasional Mangkupurba returns for Labour Block,

Open Studio Event & Marketplace 24-25 January 2025
*SCAPE Ground Theatre,
2 Orchard Link, Singapore

Ghosts of the Mesozoic is a transmedia expose reiterating the memory of Mangkupurba, of both its past and its concurrent history. A new chapter exploring the epistemological nature of narratives in the ever-expanding world of Mangkupurba.

In 1975, through the New Order’s Repelita II Agricultural Commission Programs; the Mangkupurba Institute & Indonesian Institute of Paleontology joined forces to compose the Mesozoic Temporal Monitor; a closed-sourced state-of-the-art technology which attempts to understand the anomalous transformations in Mangkupurba’s ecological makeup via temporality. The formal understanding suggests that the processes happening in the Trifecta Area are posited as an isolated Mesozoic replica; the coexistence of multiple specimens separated by million years of evolution; flourishing simultaneously at a recognizable pattern rate. The monitor predicts based on Mesozoic era cycles, through studying patterns of carbon traces and growth rates; the Institute managed to compose an algorithmic understanding of the phenomena; a breakthrough in predicting the wealth of the changing biodiversity. A miniature of Earth’s evolutionary process, a million years condensed in the heart of Borneo.

Contrary to the attempt of the centralized technological hegemon; somewhen in the 1990s an unofficial record repository cache of the Mangkupurba National Park was published. At the height of the information superhighway’s arrival; local natives, whistleblowers, disgruntled officials & foreign agents of any rate scrambled to anonymity. Uncovering the secrets & public knowledge alike; the archive posed attempt of telling different perspectives of its own history, a set of different frames for the same picture. For many Indonesians, it was yet again an era of distress and socio-cultural upheaval; it was in the climate of yet another grand change. As the obscure revelations keeps unearthing, the phenomenon called “Mangkupurba” forced us to confront our own ghosts. For there are always patterns everywhere in nature and history, Mangkupurba is no exception. And for the first time ever we are not a part of the pattern; due to forces beyond our own. We will always remember that place differently, every time. But the question is how will you choose to remember it?

Display Featuring:
Interactive Archival Site Interface
Interactive Mesozoic Temporal Monitor Interface
Mangkupurba Trifecta Area Scale Model
Neural Spine Shirt (Terra & Mist Variants)
Mangkupurba UBE-Fieldvest (Collaboration with UBE)
Specimen Keychains 1970-1983 (PLA & Stainless Steel)
NFC Archival Site Access Sculptures
Mangkupurba National Park Art Prints
Mangkupurba National Park Sticker Packs

Archival site interaction & web designed by Monica Alfons Widjaja
Handiwork support by Dekza Arlingga
Production assistant Angela Pegas
Audioscape featuring Original Theme from “Mangkupurba” composed by Dega Putra