Indonesia has a long relationship with Australia from a historical, social, economic and cultural exchange perspective. One of the histories that I read which even before the Australian continent was discovered by James Cook in 1770, Indonesian Makassar sailors had long sailed to the continent to trade with Aboriginal tribes (70 years earlier). On the other hand, Broken Hill is also an area that is a critical part of the arrival of Muslim traders from various countries such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan. These traders with camels as their mounts had contributed greatly to the running of the Australian economy at that time. This is what makes me want to be part of the history of kinship that can be produced through works of art. My idea is combining the past stories to the present called “The reminiscent lines”. What was happened before can actually happening again today with different people and time. What was going on in Broken Hill in few decades before it can be lift up again today and how it’s really impact to us as a person who lived in this time.

The works that I have created are a combination of drawings with hand-written batik, which is the original culture from Java in Indonesia. I called it as “drawing batik” which I continued to develop and process day by day. It also have brought me got a golden opportunity to be able to made my solo exhibition at 16Albermarle Project Space, Sydney and an arts residency at ATW (Australian Tapestry Workshop) Melbourne from last February to March 2020. My artworks have a lot to do with historical stories, narrative, folklore, urban legend and satire. The strength of the lines of the batik that I created is a way for me into the doors of history of the past and its correlation with what is actually happening today. This is very important, considering that we can provide knowledge for the nation's successors, students, and local residents to get to know the history of their own region through my contemporary drawing batik artwork.

I will also make a batik tulis (hand-drawn batik) workshop that can be taught to children, students and the local community. Hand-drawn batik is a traditional art that has survived to this day and it would be great if we took part in preserving it together and teaching it to anyone. The theme for the workshop was "Re-reading Broken Hill through simple hand-drawn batik". We can create Broken Hill landscapes, plants, animals and so on. This will reinforce the history or other forms of Broken Hill through hand-drawn batik art.

The number of works that I will exhibit is around 15 drawing batik on silk cotton, satin, polyester cotton and silk. The sizes I usually use for these fabrics range from 100 cm to 300 cm. The display of batik drawings is easy to hang but perhaps the challenge requires for the high sealing. However, this can still be overcome by shortening the size of the work. Another work that I brought was drawing murals that I could do there. The theme of this mural work is about the relationship between ourselves and the city where we were born and then can have a big impact globally.

Even I am not from Broken Hill, I just feels like this place have lots of story with humble local community, sightseeing views and I want to be part of it with my drawing batik artworks.