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Elia Nurvista

Tremors Ground: A Study of the Land
2021

Mind map, rice sack installation, video with sound
Variable dimensions

Continuing her research on global politics of food, nurvista sets out to entangle discourses around hunger, food technology, food policy, and transregional narratives of cooperation and aid into the larger matrices of geopolitics and indonesian national and transnational history. For her work in the exhibition, nurvista frames these questions within the political shifts that transpired during sukarno’s leadership. Nurvista’s work speculates on the nodes and linkages of the meshwork that constitute the global food world: from the threat and specter of communism, the prospects of a non-aligned movement, anti-colonialist projects, and aspirations of national development. From a mind map of events, programs, and initiatives that affected southeast asian food sovereignty, to a selection of archival footages of political action related to these, and an installation that interrogates the political tenor of rice and agricultural crops in indonesian political history, nurvista believes that “small narratives and historic trivia are connected and have trajectories that move among one another, shaping what we understand as big global stories.”



Elia Nurvista (b. 1983) is interested in exploring a wide range of art mediums with an interdisciplinary approach and focus on the discourse of food. Through food, she scrutinizes power, as well as social and economic inequality in this world. In 2015 she initiated Bakudapan food study group with colleagues from different disciplines such as anthropology and philosophy. Bakudapan is guided by principles of complementarity and camaraderie between the members. With Bakudapan she has conducted research on food within socio-political and cultural contexts. She has participated in several exhibitions including Dhaka Art Summit (2020), Karachi Biennale (2019), and the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at QAGOMA in Brisbane (2018), among others. She also curated The Biennale Jogja XVI: Equator #6 (Indonesia and Oceania) (2021); ADAM LAB at TPAC (Taipei Performing Arts Center) with Transient Collective (2020); and the solidarity platform Land, Water, Farming, Food: Struggle for Sovereignty, initiated by Bakudapan and Bodies of Power/Power for Bodies (2020/2021). She lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.