Setanah, Tak Pernah Diam: Exploring Space and Disaster Mitigation
In the first room of Bale Paragon, a screen displays a distant view of Mount Tangkuban Parahu in the midst of an eruption. Shortly afterward, a black lahar flood rushes down the river channel. The animated simulation, titled Reading the Moving Earth, was created by Arafura & Exposed Project Team. On a nearby touchscreen, visitors can select another simulation depicting an earthquake in a residential neighborhood.
The work serves as the opening piece of Setanah, Tak Pernah Diam (Of the Same Earth, Never Still), an exhibition running at Bale Paragon, Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, from August 29 to October 31, 2026. This public exhibition explores how people understand and live alongside a constantly shifting geological landscape. Figures cited by the organizers underscore the importance of the subject. According to long-term monitoring data from Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) covering 2009 to 2023, Indonesia experienced an average of 7,524 earthquakes annually, including seismic activity along the Lembang Fault in Bandung.
The exhibition also serves as a platform for sharing the findings of Seismic Synergy: Learning from Traditional Wisdom to Build a Resilient Future, an international research project supported by the Toyota Foundation. The research team comprises scholars from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, NED University of Engineering and Technology in Pakistan, Pinion, and the Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction in Nepal. Several partner organizations, including BRIN, BGS, and RDI, are also involved. The exhibition is chaired by Prasanti Widyasih Sarli, a civil and environmental engineering researcher specializing in resilience and environmental risk. Prananda L. Malasan, a researcher and curator whose work explores culture, the environment, and everyday practices, leads the curatorial team, while Nuraini Rahma H., a geoscientist at BRIN specializing in geohazard risk and resilience, heads the research team.
Through a dialogue between traditional knowledge and contemporary scientific perspectives, the project invites the public to reconsider disasters as part of the long-standing interaction between people and a dynamic environment, rather than as sudden, isolated events.
The curatorial theme, “The Missing Connection,” reflects on the weakening ties between people, materials, building practices, and disaster-related knowledge. Historical, technological, ethnographic, and atmospheric dimensions are brought together as part of an educational experience. Disaster science, art, and community experiences converge to communicate geological risks across the Bandung Metropolitan Area, including the threat posed by the Lembang Fault and the active volcanoes in the surrounding region.
This exhibition is designed for children and adults from diverse communities and backgrounds. It also builds on interactive experiences, encouraging visitors to explore, touch, and participate directly. It seeks to address issues that are overlooked in the landscape, faults, and volcanoes.
The exhibition is organized into several zones. The first introduces Earth as a dynamic system shaped by fault movements, volcanic activity, and tectonic forces. Through maps, models, and scientific visualizations, visitors are invited to understand how landscapes form and, in turn, shape the environments in which communities live. The second zone explores how communities adapt to changing landscapes. Traditional houses, settlement patterns, and cultural practices are displayed alongside contemporary design approaches, highlighting the ongoing dialogue between inherited knowledge and present-day resilience strategies. The final zone invites visitors to reflect on possible futures through artistic installations and interactive experiences, exploring how societies can continue to live with uncertainty and change.
In the central room, visitors encounter artworks, cultural objects, and traditional and modern engineering approaches related to earthquake preparedness and volcanic eruption mitigation. One of the featured works is Wall Surgery Table, which explores how to strengthen houses against earthquakes. The walls can be reinforced without being demolished through a technique known as retrofitting. The materials are relatively simple: sand, cement, water, and chicken wire, used to help the walls withstand seismic forces.
The back room features several works, including Weaving a Safety Net. This interactive installation invites visitors to consider their personal priorities by asking one question: Whom would you want to save first when disaster strikes? Visitors can write additional names with red markers and connect them with red thread. The resulting web symbolizes love and the protective power of affection. A shelf in the corner holds collaborative research on earthquakes, bringing scientific data and personal experiences together in the same space.
For Bandung residents living near the Lembang Fault, the issues explored in this exhibition are particularly relevant, closely connected to the realities of everyday life.
Sources: Exhibition materials for Setanah, Tak Pernah Diam; earthquake data cited by the organizers from BMKG (2009–2023).
