MAM Collection 022: Timoteus Anggawan Kusno

Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 1989; currently based in Amsterdam) is an artist who explores questions surrounding the history of colonialism and its memory through practices that spans video, photography, and installation. His work represents a critical examination of the power structures and arbitrary manipulations inherent in official historical narratives, even as it deliberately blurs the boundaries between fiction and documentary to reexamine the fragility of “historical truth.”

MAM Collection 022 showcases Kusno’s diverse practice through two new works, including a recent video piece, in addition to Dismantling Nostalgia (2024), a work combining archival prints, oil and acrylic paints, rope, and metallic devices that is in the collection of the Mori Art Museum. It depicts nostalgic mountain and field landscapes where people and nature coexist in harmony, revealing how paintings known as Mooi Indie that romanticized the idea of the colonies have served to conceal the violence and inequality brought about by colonial rule. In the photographic series Void of Time (2024) and the latest video work Sola Fata (2025), both of which also address the theme of colonial rule, Kusno embarks on a critical examination of the dangers associated with a gaze that romanticizes the past, distorting historical facts and perpetuating a nostalgia for dictatorships and colonial regimes within contemporary society.

Dismantling Nostalgia (2024) was an acquisition made by the Mori Art Museum Southeast Asia Collectors Circle (SEACC). Established in 2023, the SEACC is a support group for collectors in Southeast Asia that seeks to sustain the networks cultivated through the 2017 exhibition SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now. SEACC supports curatorial field research and the acquisition of artworks.