Surat No. 03: Lelono
{ Lelono } [ meaning: ‘Journey’ ] is the third essay of THE NEW EAST INDIES* trilogy, presented as a pilgrimage journal on self-introspection. This paper is about an artist’s escapade in between various polarities of life. Receptiveness in learning new viewpoints and bravery in evaluating oneself set a crucial course in discovering an authentic identity in the globalization era.
The research relating to this visual essay collection started at the end of 2016, in the midst of several global polarity nuances which effected the current cultural and human behavior shifts. There were two pivotal circumstances that were to be fully recognized in order to maintain stability in a civilized community. First was the rapid flow of digitalization which superseded development efforts towards a more effective learning system. The second was Indonesian’s Gini Coefficient (0,4) in 2017 which served as an unsettling gauge on the disparate gap of income and wealth distributions, compared to its neighboring countries. Amongst the population of 260 million people in Indonesia whom many experienced discontents over those 2 mentioned circumstances, I wished to formulate a fresh perspective that could give hope and pragmatic solutions.
*{ THE NEW EAST INDIES }
presents an anthology of literature and artworks by Melissa Sunjaya, which examines the present state of Indonesian civilization and its potential future transformation. Traditionally, civilization has been interpreted through a distinct methodology based on human tendencies in viewing various problems and solutions through emotions, language, culture, art, and science. The digital era has opened the door to a world without limits, where each individual is able to access a seemingly endless assortment of information rapidly from this secondary cyber-universe. Concurrently, advances in transportation technology have made it possible to travel thousands of miles in a single day. The two sectors have greatly accelerated the progress of our civilization. Yet one thing remains certain: there are discernible tradeoffs occurring alongside our technological advances. this acceleration has diminished our connection to the natural world and cultivated a civilization that produces pollution in abundance.
