After Voices takes the form of a procession in which everyone has vanished, leaving behind the tools of protest. Kuswidananto’s striking mixed-media installation is underpinned by hundreds of pairs of shoes which are assembled in rectangular formation through the gallery space. The shoes bear the wear and tear of footwear that has been put through its paces, and now stand to attention in lieu of their owners. Above these are suspended a number of empty busts, whose external shape is formed respectively by motorcycle helmets or balaclavas fashioned from t-shirts. The invisible figures implied by these busts are accompanied respectively by suspended motorcycle headlamps, motorized clapping “hands” and drums, and megaphones. These are the various groups active in Indonesia’s heady public clashes which, as curator Alia Swastika describes in her catalogue essay, took the place of declining student protests after the 1998 revolution—their corresponding battle cries are printed on colorful banners hanging above them, impotent without a vehicle of voice. A fan intermittently and noisily starts, fluttering large banners on which are printed figures poised to shoot. That these ghostly figures occasionally semi-appear further serves to highlight the absence of a dynamic human presence in this gathering.

Face coverings have strong connotations in the current sociopolitical climate, including in Australia where women who choose to cover their heads or faces are often subject to religious vilification, ironically sometimes by groups whose members have been known to hide their faces in the Australian flag when protesting in public. In Kuswidananto’s work, the face coverings of each invisible bust simultaneously anonymize and collectivize the individual. The strength of the public protest lies in the gathering of many singular bodies; however, it is the merging of these bodies into a large mass stripped of individual identity that creates strength—and also volatility.