Words: Ibrahim Soetomo
Photos: Agung Hartamurti/Whiteboard Journal

Kei Imazu is a Japanese artist based in Bandung whose practice blends traditional artistic techniques with digital technology to navigate and excavate history where memory, power, and place fragments interweave non-linearly.

Moving from Japan to Bandung in 2018, Imazu has expanded her research across multiple temporalities and geographies, engaging with narratives of colonial legacies and environmental transformation. Imazu’s solo show at MACAN, The Sea is Barely Wrinkled, weaves together Indonesia’s colonial past and climate crisis.

We met with Imazu to talk about her art, mythology, and her views on Jakarta’s colonial past and current ecological challenges.

Your practice blends conventional artmaking techniques with digital technology. When did you start taking interest in this method? 

I discovered Photoshop and a lot of other new technologies around 10 years ago when I was studying. It opened up a lot of perspective because, back then, I was only making designs only by my own sense and touch. But Photoshop has a lot of layers and eventually I can access different archives, and to layer those different archives enables new possibilities and also actually shows surprises that are very unique and also very new. 

Having been doing this for around 10 years, I felt that my exploration developed. Now, I can use a 3D printer where I can actually touch objects that were previously on screen and immerse myself into the object, like the Batavia ship currently displayed here at the show where I can actually see and touch the buried treasures. So, there’s a lot of unlimited possibilities through technology.

Your practice blends conventional artmaking techniques with digital technology. When did you start taking interest in this method? 

I discovered Photoshop and a lot of other new technologies around 10 years ago when I was studying. It opened up a lot of perspective because, back then, I was only making designs only by my own sense and touch. But Photoshop has a lot of layers and eventually I can access different archives, and to layer those different archives enables new possibilities and also actually shows surprises that are very unique and also very new. 

Having been doing this for around 10 years, I felt that my exploration developed. Now, I can use a 3D printer where I can actually touch objects that were previously on screen and immerse myself into the object, like the Batavia ship currently displayed here at the show where I can actually see and touch the buried treasures. So, there’s a lot of unlimited possibilities through technology.

Speaking of the ability of technology to present archives to the present time, your approach is shaped by a sense of archaeology and excavation of human material cultures—that’s what I observed from your solo show at ROH, unearth (2023–24).  How do you interpret or even reconstruct our stories through these materials?

By empowering technology, it kind of gives birth to a new discovery, and also at the same time we shouldn’t forget about history. And actually, technology helps to connect and sew the bits and pieces together, and juxtapose them into one concrete artwork or installation. 

I look at myself partly as an archeologist by digging not only into the archives or digging into the past, but also digging into stories like mythology where I explore stories of Nyi Roro Kidul, for instance. It is connected to my research, and I also describe myself as someone who juxtaposes these discoveries of technology and different stories into one artwork or exhibition.

Since moving to Bandung in 2018, you’ve started to address the country’s colonial history, folklore, and mythology. How has this shift in your geographic and cultural environment influenced your artistic practice?

When I moved to Indonesia, I discovered new things including history and also the dark history of colonial Japan. In Japan, I was only taught about the Pacific War or World War II, which resulted in the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that’s pretty much it. Not many narratives are being told about what Imperial Japan actually had done in other countries or how the impact has been felt by the people in those countries. Imperial Japan actually had an effect in the colonial times on Indonesia and now it creates a certain kind of perception when Indonesians encounter Japanese people.

I saw that this country is not only wealthy but also very prosperous. For example, in Japan, you could only crop rice once a year, but in Indonesia, it could be done twice, even three times in some seasons, which is very prosperous. And it’s also one of the reasons why foreign powers, including the Colonials, the Dutch, Portugal and also England, and eventually Japan came to this country because they want to explore the possibilities that they could take out of this land. 

In many parts of Indonesia, prosperity has been actually symbolized by a female figure; a female goddess or a female character, and it becomes embedded into many parts of society, and I’m keen to explore these narratives.

You’ve mentioned that your research expands across multiple temporalities. How do you represent these different layers of time within a single artwork or exhibition, and what effect do you hope to achieve by doing so?

In my work, different temporalities—such as the past, the present, and imagined futures—coexist within a single image or installation. This stems from a sense that various eras accumulate and overlap like layers of sediment, shaping the landscapes we see today.

For example, fragments of old maps, mythological figures, and the wreckage of sunken ships may appear within the same visual field. By doing this, I aim to displace the viewer’s sense of time and evoke a perspective that resists being confined to a single era.

Through this approach, I want to convey that time does not simply flow in a linear direction—it can circle back, fold upon itself, or even rupture. Ultimately, I hope my work invites viewers to reflect on how we position ourselves within this complex, layered continuum.

Your first large-scale solo exhibition, Tanah Air at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery weaves together personal, historical and mythological narratives of Japan, where you root, and your present situation in Indonesia. How do you navigate and visually articulate the complexities of these interwoven narratives, especially when bridging your personal connection to Japan with your current experiences here?

When I did the show in Tokyo, the response from the Japanese audience was very positive. This made me quite confident that moving to Indonesia in 2018 was good timing. Indonesia had a lot of creative power at that time, and the collective art society was rising and getting global attention.

In the past, Indonesia gained international recognition especially during the Bandung Conference, and was seen as a possible center for the Global South due to its location and historical connections with former colonies. I believe this strength should be enhanced, and art could play a crucial part in this.

Touching upon colonial history or legacy, The Sea is Barely Wrinkled weaves Indonesia’s colonial past, ecological challenges, and local mythology, and also inspired by the Batavia shipwreck tragedy in 1628. How do you address them in your solo show?

In this exhibition, I intended to treat historical events not as something confined to the past, but as “ongoing memories” that are deeply intertwined with present-day landscapes and concerns. The Batavia shipwreck of 1629 symbolizes the violence of Dutch colonial rule and mercantile ambition, but it also evokes the traces of resistance led by Sultan Agung, the Javanese king who fought against the colonizer Jan Pieterszoon Coen. Furthermore, it invites an imaginative leap—what if the legendary sea goddess Nyai Roro Kidul had expressed her wrath in response to this southern invasion?

By connecting this historical maritime tragedy to mythological imagination, I attempted to make the invisible visible. Using 3D reconstructions of ship fragments and buried treasures, along with architectural forms reminiscent of the crumbling VOC-era fortifications, the installation seeks to unearth the dormant memories lying beneath the city’s surface.

The sea goddesses and earth spirits that appear in local mythology act as mediators between these historical traces and the natural environment. My goal was to create a space in which viewers can physically and emotionally experience the recurring layers of history—within the very context of a Jakarta that is, quite literally, sinking beneath our feet.

Your story reminds me of a painting by S. Sudjojono, The Battle of Sultan Agung and Jan Pieterseen Coen (1973) now displayed in the Jakarta History Museum.

That is a very nice painting! I saw the sketches of that painting and I was so inspired. Also by Harijadi Sumadidjaja’s unfinished mural on the wall.

Speaking of the museum area, I discovered through her research how actually the walls that were initially built by the VOC in the beginning are now cracked down. That’s why in the 19th century it’s all gone. We don’t have any remains of the original walls of Batavia except around the Museum Bahari Jakarta.

How do you arrive at the title The Sea is Barely Wrinkled, and how do they frame our understanding of your work?

The title is inspired by a passage in Italo Calvino’s Mr. Palomar (1983), where the protagonist tries to observe a single wave, only to realize that no moment can be isolated—each one is part of an endless flow. The sea might appear still and flat, but beneath it lies a complex, layered movement of time.

The Sea is Barely Wrinkled symbolizes how surface appearances often conceal buried histories, silent narratives, and forgotten voices. It reflects my artistic process, which aims to excavate these unseen layers beneath the visible image—just as the calm surface of the sea hides shipwrecks, currents, and stories below.

Considering your engagement with mythology, how do you see your art—or art in general—contributing to contemporary dialogues surrounding these complex issues, both in Indonesia and on a global scale?

Looking from a Japanese cultural perspective, actually Japan has so much animism. It has so much mythology, and it actually believes in local gods. That’s why, for example, they believe that the sea has a god, or maybe the land has a God, even inside a grain of rice there is a god. They believe that God is embodied in nature itself. That’s why they appreciate nature. They will not throw plastic or garbage into the sea, because it’s like trashing God’s face. So, it’s a concept that by doing something that damages the Earth, we’re actually degrading God itself.

The concept I explore in Indonesia that involves mythology plays a similar role in acknowledging a greater power. This is how I connect history and current challenges related to ecology and mythology, bringing them together in my artwork.

Kei Imazu: The Sea is Barely Wrinkled

24 May –10 October 2025
Museum MACAN
AKR Tower
Jl. Perjuangan No.5
Jakarta Barat, 11530