Becoming Small with Through the Looking Glass
On August 18, 2024, Studioland opened their doors to visitors of Through the Looking Glass, a group exhibition curated by Alessandra Langit. Hosted at the Kandank Jurank Artspace, south Tangerang, the exhibition seeks to challenge the rigid rules and structures of “serious” art as often demanded in our capitalist society. Through the Looking Glass invites visitors into a space that dissolves the constraints of adulthood. Each artist presents a unique interpretation of what it means to be small in a world that demands maturity and levity.
Featuring works from Auratium, Dhanurendra Pandji, Haiza Putti, Jesse Manuel, Nadine Hanisya, Sarah Arifin, and Subs Experiment, Through the Looking Glass challenges what today’s society would deem “proper” and “valuable” art—a gentle rebellion that revels in the authenticity of human emotion. Alluding to the narrative of the shrinking Alice of Alice in Wonderland, the young artists of this exhibition pose “shrinking” not as a retreat but as a revolutionary reclamation of softness and imagination.
The space that hosts Through the Looking Glass lends itself to the impression of a whimsical mirage—carefully designed to blur the line between reality and fantasy with reflective and transparent surfaces that serve as a metaphor of the endless possibilities of human emotion. Each artwork serves as a doorway to a softer and more fluid world where the gentleness and quietness often associated with femininity, is boldly celebrated. As curator Alessandra Langit puts it in a press statement, “This is a place where softness becomes a radical act, and whimsy, a powerful tool for reimagining our reality.”
Through the Looking Glass argues that becoming small is an action of power. A radical call to shrug off the heavy burden of logic and embrace wonder and whimsy—”the lightness of our dreams, the twirl of a leaf, or the whisper of a childhood memory.” This exhibition is an invitation to defy the ever-exhausting posturing of the modern world and find power in the playful. Through the Looking Glass is open to the public at Kandank Jurank Artspace until September 15, 2024.
