Leo Bagus Purnomo

Honours

Mature Language (song lyrics)

I identify as a male, as a person of colour, and as an artist—but what does it mean to be male, a person of colour, or an artist? Our understanding of these zombie categories—dead categories that persist—is today more ambiguous than it was in the past. To maintain a sense of ontological security we constantly narrate and elaborate upon our understanding of who we are. A statement of one hundred and fifty words or ten thousand will never be able to consolidate a stable and complete sense of self—our liquid identities will always remain in flux.

This year I applied a research-based approach to artmaking in the hope of attaining a better understanding of the pluralistic process through which we negotiate our identities—but it has only made things more uncertain.

Watch Masks on Please livestream here