The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

121 ARTISTS Sucker Zucker (detail) 2016 Isomalt, water, mahogany and mixed media / Dimensions variable / Installation view, ‘Dialogue with the Senses’, Galeria Fatahillah, Jakarta, 2016 / Photograph: Fajar Riyanto / Image courtesy: Arcolabs Born 1983, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Lives and works in Yogyakarta Elia Nurvista’s sugar sculptures are colourful, jewel-like objects, produced with the assistance of local artisans in Yogyakarta. For APT9, they are accompanied by a mural, and explore some of sugar’s complicated history, including its links with global exploitation. Nurvista’s broader practice focuses on food production and distribution, and situates our consumption of edible products in terms of larger social and historical narratives. She explores issues of economics, labour, politics, culture and gender through food and food-related rituals — from the planting of crops to the act of eating, to the passing on of recipes. In addition, she runs Bakudapan, a food study group that coordinates various community and research projects, which also inform the artist’s individual projects — mixed media installations, food workshops, communal meals and group discussions. Nurvista’s Sucker Zucker 2018 builds on a 2016 work, for which she created a series of crystalline sugar sculptures, displayed like gems atop pedestals, with take-home containers decorated with diamond shapes. According to the artist, sugar and diamonds have a shared appearance and narrative, from their colour and shape to a history of labour, slavery, exploitation and material extraction. The sugar industry precipitated some of the largest enforced migrations in the world, affecting Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. Slavery has been abolished, however, Nurvista argues that the world continues to be divided geographically into those nations that supply cheap labour and commodities, and those with global corporations that control production. Visitors to the 2016 exhibition ‘Dialogue with the Senses’, in Jakarta, were invited to lick the sculptures, while some were smashed open and fragments given to audience members to taste. The sweets were pleasant to sample at first, but their centres were surprisingly bitter. Sugar is the world’s third most valuable crop (following cereals and rice) and sugar cane occupies some 26 million hectares of land across the globe. Yet sugar has little nutritional value, contributes to a global public health crisis, and has links to disease, addiction and oppression. 1 The production and consumption of sugar have also been topics of intense debate in recent years under President Joko Widodo in Indonesia. The sugar industry plays an important role in the country’s economy, but local producers are not keeping up with the demand in a country undergoing rapid industrialisation, which has created a large sugar ‘deficit’. 2 Local sugar lobbies are keen to protect the market from imports, and the government has committed to making the sugar industry self-sufficient. At the same time, the middle class has grown and there is an increased demand for processed food and beverages requiring more sugar. Ageing factories, poor technology and the loss of land due to the expansion of industrial and residential developments are some of the problems faced by the industry. Despite this, the government insists that Indonesia must stop importing sugar by 2019, and that it should be grown at home, along with soybeans, rice and corn. Elia Nurvista’s practice examines the way that food and its consumption defines us and influences our values. She also shows us how food can create dialogue, participation, and a sense of belonging and authenticity, as well as opportunities for healing. The tart centre of her sculptures is a reminder that what appears to nourish and sustain us can also leave a bitter aftertaste. Abigail Bernal Endnotes 1 Mark Horton, Alexander Bentley, Philip Langton, ‘A history of sugar: The food nobody needs, but everyone craves’, Conversation , 31 October 2015, <http://theconversation.com/a-history-of-sugar-the-food-nobody- needs-but-everyone-craves-49823>, viewed May 2018. 2 ‘Indonesia to be sugar self-sufficient by 2019: Expert’, Jakarta Post , 13 January 2017, <http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/01/13/ indonesia-to-be-sugar-self-sufficient-by-2019-expert.html>, viewed May 2018. ELIA NURVISTA