NEW YORK, NY.- Swiss Institute presents the first institutional exhibition of Indonesian artist Bagus Pandega. Pandega’s work ingeniously addresses the extraction of natural resources in Indonesia—from the 16th century spice trade in nutmeg and cloves, to the palm oil industry, to the contemporary global demand for nickel used in batteries for computers, phones, and electric vehicles. Adopting a do-it-yourself, hacker approach, Pandega constructs modular systems using readily available, everyday technologies, natural materials such as plants and rare earth minerals, and musical instruments. These responsive installations are programmed to trigger mechanical and chemical reactions that generate sound or movement, influenced by changes in hyperlocal conditions such as human presence in the space.
Embedding viewers in feedback loops of electricity, breath, and movement, Pandega foregrounds relations shaped by cycles of life, extraction, and reciprocity. Guided by a DIY engineering ethos and a deep engagement with materials, his works convey a sense of both precariousness and vulnerability, experimentation and ingenuity.
Daya Benda is organized in collaboration with Kunsthalle Basel, where the artist’s exhibition Sumber Alam is on view concurrently. The titles reference two Indonesian idioms referring to natural resources, still life, and object power.
Bagus Pandega (b. 1985 in Jakarta) lives and works in Bandung, Indonesia. Recent solo exhibitions include 〇 at ROH, Jakarta, Indonesia (2024); A Pervasive Rhythm at Yamamoto Gendai, Tokyo, Japan (2018); and A Monument That Tells Anything at Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Bangkok Art Biennale: Nurture Gaia at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, Thailand (2024); WAGIWAGI at documenta fifteen, Hübnerareal, Kassel, Germany (2022); Declaring Distance: Bandung — Leiden at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2022)—all featuring his collaborative work with Kei Imazu; the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial at QAGOMA, Brisbane, Australia (2021-22); Ripples: Continuity in Indonesian Contemporary Art at Taipei Dangdai, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); Distorted Alteration at Project Fulfill, Taipei, Taiwan (2018); and Amsterdam Light Festival, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2017). A nominee of the 2016 Sovereign Art Prize, Pandega collaborated with Adi Purnomo and Irwan Ahmett in presenting Freedome for the Indonesia Pavilion at the London Design Biennale: Utopia by Design in 2016, and he recently developed the new commission Stomata for the Esplanade Concourse, Singapore (2024-25).The exhibition is made possible through institutional support from MV Art Foundation and Tumurun Museum. SI gratefully acknowledges the Bagus Pandega Exhibition Circle: Judith Khneysser, Teddy Lazuardi, Marius Neuenschwander, Sigit Nugroho, Chai Schnyder, Natasha Sidharta, SUPER PROJECTS, Nicholas Tan, and Fiona Xie. Institutional Production Support: M Art Foundation. SI additionally wishes to thank ROH for production support.Daya Benda is curated by Stefanie Hessler, Director of Swiss Institute. Thanks to Alison Coplan, Chief Curator, and KJ Abudu, Associate Curator, for production support.
Mona Filleul: Sissy Institute
SI presents Sissy Institute, the first solo exhibition by artist Mona Filleul in the United States. In Sissy Institute, Filleul continues her exploration of artmaking as a vehicle for creating and sustaining queer transnational communities. Featuring works that blur distinctions between painting, sculpture, and assemblage set within an architectural scenography, the exhibition constructs a refuge for the increasingly policed expression of queer and trans subjectivities. Reclaiming the notion of sissiness as a dissident mode to critique normative understandings of gender, Filleul transmutes structural conditions of gendered violence and economic insecurity into playful, intimate, and haptic aesthetic encounters to offer an in-between space for sharing the resilience of queer life in the precarious present.
SI Reading Room
Costanza Candeloro and Licit Illicit Bookshop: No Plot, Just Street
SI also presents No Plot, Just Street, a reading room installation by artist Costanza Candeloro in collaboration with Licit Illicit Bookshop, a mobile platform co-founded in 2020 with Francesca Ciccone.
The installation features a selection of over 50 radical, rare, and out-of-print titles sourced primarily from the US and Italy. These books, available for visitors to read on-site, engage with increasingly surveilled and marginalized bodies of knowledge, including feminist theory, queer and postcolonial studies, poetry, and related discourses. Responding to the recent growing wave of state censorship, particularly within the United States, the selection centers on books published by High Risk, a provocative anthology series that evolved into an independent publishing house in the 1990s. Founded by Ira Silverberg and Amy Scholder, High Risk was renowned for amplifying transgressive voices and fostering critical conversations around sexuality, identity, and dissent.
Alongside this selection, the installation includes works that engage with the historical iconography of women reading. Traditionally portrayed in private, domestic settings, where reading is confined away from the public sphere, Candeloro reimagines these poses by placing female readers in urban, crowded, and highly visible contexts. In doing so, she transforms the act of reading into a declarative gesture of presence. Rendered as three-dimensional installations reminiscent of commercial displays, these images aim to subvert conventional dynamics of exposure: what appears in the window is not a commodity, but a self-aware figure asserting her visibility.
Costanza Candeloro (b. 1990, Bologna, Italy) graduated in 2014 from the Haute école d’art et de design (HEAD) in Geneva, Switzerland. Recent solo exhibitions include Tout le temps de vie est temps de travail at Sihl Delta, Zurich (2024); Possessed is The Style at Ausstellungsraum Friedensgasse, Zurich (2024); C&G at Istituto Svizzero, Milan (2023); ENVY & GRATITUDE at Martina Simeti, Milan (2022); My Skin-care, My Strength at ICA Milano (2022); and Sweet Days of Discipline at La Plage, Paris (2022). In 2025, she will have a solo show at CEC Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at MUSEION, Bolzano (2024); Galerie Hussenot, Paris (2023); La Rada, Locarno (2023); Sitterwerk Art Library and Material Archive, St. Gallen (2021); and Tunnel Tunnel, Lausanne (2021); among others.
Licit Illicit Bookshop is a project by Costanza Candeloro and Francesca Ciccone that explores the connection between rarity and radicality. The catalogue includes feminist theory, queer and postcolonial studies, anti-psychiatry, literature, poetry, and more.
