Common Sanctum | 2024: Bunga Yuridespita and the Experience of Space

For Bunga Yuridespita, space is an endless exploration of experience and knowledge. Trained and formerly practicing as an architect, Bunga shifted her path to become an artist. In both disciplines, she sees a shared pursuit of discovering and constructing mediums of expression. Her works delve into not only the architectural logic of space but also her embodied experience of inhabiting it. Influenced by her architectural background, Bunga pays close attention to the complexities of form, material, and spatial fragments, bringing a sensitivity to materials such as stone, glass, or metal into her artistic practice.

Bunga's paintings are abstract, avoiding narrative forms or symbols that explain stories. Instead, her work emphasizes the visual intensity of showing rather than explaining. Her paintings reflect an imaginative exploration of space—elusive, non-neutral, and filled with human intent and emotion. She conveys spatial qualities such as height, width, openness, and enclosure through diverse forms like floor plans, architectural constructions, and detailed fragments of space. These elements create a precise yet quiet aesthetic, echoing Mark Rothko's sentiment that "silence is so accurate." While different in style, Bunga’s works evoke this silence through vibrant fields of color and optical effects that suggest depth, dimension, or structural form.

A key feature of Bunga's art is her use of negative space. She views these "empty" areas not as voids but as potential spaces, awaiting discovery in relation to their context. Her unique balance between filled and empty areas on the canvas creates tension, inviting viewers to engage with the multiplicity of space—much like a nesting set of rooms, buildings, and environments extending into the cosmos.

This spatial philosophy is central to Bunga's solo exhibition, "Common Sanctum," at Salihara Arts Center, Jakarta. Drawing from her architectural education, Bunga identifies Salihara's distinctive design as an "expression of space." Her response integrates mural paintings on walls and floors, video art installations, and site-specific works placed throughout the venue. These interventions blur boundaries between concrete and imaginary spaces, immersing the audience in the interplay between physical presence and illusion.

Through "Common Sanctum," Bunga reclaims space as a subject rather than an object. In a fast-paced urban context like Jakarta, where spaces are commodified for functional purposes—work, shopping, or recreation—Bunga seeks to restore their unique, transformative qualities. Her exploration of “sanctum” as a sacred, personal connection to space reflects a productive and inspiring view of urban life.

This exhibition challenges the dichotomy of actual versus virtual space. Bunga envisions a harmonious relationship, where the virtual complements the actual in meaningful ways. Her work transforms virtual possibilities into conscious experiences, emphasizing the inseparability of existence from space. For Bunga, space is an ongoing inquiry into identity, presence, and transformation—an inexhaustible source of meaning and creativity.

Curator: Rizki A. Zaelani