Kei Imazu: The Sea is Barely Wrinkled

Museum MACAN presents the solo exhibition of Kei Imazu titled The Sea is Barely Wrinkled. The exhibition navigates a “time map” connecting Indonesia’s colonial past, present ecological challenges, and local mythology. Inspired by the Batavia shipwreck tragedy of 1628, the exhibition highlights the enduring colonial legacy alongside urgent environmental issues in Jakarta. 

Kei Imazu (b. Japan, 1980) is a Bandung-based artist whose work practice blends traditional artistic techniques with digital technology to demarcate and excavate history in a non-linear manner where fragments of memory, power, and place interweave. Moving from Japan to Bandung in 2018, Imazu expanded her research across multiple temporalities and geographies, engaging with narratives of colonial legacies and environmental transformation.

The title, The Sea is Barely Wrinkled, is an excerpt from Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923–1985) with his novel, Mr. Palomar (1983), where a man attempts to observe a single wave in its entirety, only to realize that it is always connected to a larger current–a metaphor for the finitudes of human perception of the complexity of the world. In Imazu’s work, this idea manifests as a subtle tension between stillness and flux, where her visual narratives blur temporal boundaries and open space for historical interpretation. Through her artistic practice, Imazu invites viewers to reflect on how humanity is continuously carried by the currents of history, myth, and exploitation, navigating a complex network that shapes how we perceive and experience the world.

The exhibition also highlights Dewi Sri and Nyai Roro Kidul, two mythological figures symbolizing the urgent need to rethink human and nonhuman relationships with nature amidst today’s ecological crises, offering a counter-narrative to the anthropocentric colonial paradigm. Imazu blurs the line between history, myth, and fiction through this exhibition, inviting reflection on humanity’s entanglement with layered history, nature, and time.