Unresolved Hybrid Identity

An MA thesis project taking apart Indonesia’s coat of arms, maps and flag, then rebuilding them to ask what a self-authored national identity might look like.

National symbols are rarely invented from nothing. Newly independent states often pattern their flags and emblems on the coloniser’s, or on ideals borrowed from elsewhere — and Indonesia’s own coat of arms and flag are no exception. This project used deconstruction as a method, taking three national symbols apart to ask whether that inheritance is necessary, or simply familiar.

Three cases were built: Garuda Pancasila deconstructed against Dutch, British and Imperial Japanese heraldry; an 1855 colonial map of the East Indies set against present-day Indonesia; and the national flag recombined and fabricated as full-scale objects on military-grade fabric.

Every recombination was printed and embroidered rather than rendered, giving the speculative arguments physical presence.

Three cases were built: Garuda Pancasila deconstructed against Dutch, British and Imperial Japanese heraldry; an 1855 colonial map of the East Indies set against present-day Indonesia; and the national flag recombined and fabricated as full-scale objects on military-grade fabric.

Every recombination was printed and embroidered rather than rendered, giving the speculative arguments physical presence.

Three cases were built: Garuda Pancasila deconstructed against Dutch, British and Imperial Japanese heraldry; an 1855 colonial map of the East Indies set against present-day Indonesia; and the national flag recombined and fabricated as full-scale objects on military-grade fabric.

Every recombination was printed and embroidered rather than rendered, giving the speculative arguments physical presence.

Exhibited at the Central Saint Martins Degree Show (2019), with further showings in London and Tokyo.

The objects spoke. But they spoke somewhat alone.

The project surfaced two gaps — missing context to let the objects speak for themselves, and a single author speculating on a community’s behalf — that became the starting point for the participatory work that followed.