WHAT?  Citra Sasmita: Into Eternal Land 

WHERE?  The Curve, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

WHEN?   Now until 21st April. Free to view 

WHY GO?  To be enlightened.  If you’re binging season three of The White Lotus you will feel the love for this atmospheric interactive exhibition. 

Get your fix of Southeast Asian culture for free at this cherished little gallery.  You might want to meditate quietly at the end as there are cushions all set up before you face the bustling Barbican complex outside. 

Sasmita is an Indonesian visual artist who has transformed The Curve gallery with her very personal artworks as it ebbs and flows allowing for embroidered installations to hang freely from the ceiling and along the bendy walls. 

It’s a multi sensory experience with specially composed soundtrack and fragrant scents to create a soothing atmosphere though some of her graphic images are anything BUT soothing as they depict the more violent issues of a colonial past!

The overall theme explores ancestral memories of birth, death and migration, some powerfully symbolic, others erotically unrestrained.  Don’t expect images of sweet smiling Indonesian women, Sasmita bravely depicts the brutal aspects of ancestry. 

Panoramic scroll paintings weave in and out between textile embroideries and beaded cow hides hang from wooden pillars.

It’s a journey of discovery as Sasmita herself claims.  Self-taught, she combined her original literature and physics studies to follow her own path to enlightenment which has headed towards this; a feminist take on ancestral tradition.

IN THE KNOW  Sasmita has turned ancient myths upside down with her craftwork, while Indonesian music composer Agha Praditya Yogaswara has mixed electronic music with ritualistic tones to create spiritual karma. The evocative sound system accompanying the exhibition sets the scene.