“Berbalik dan Melihat ke Belakang” stages a deliberate reorientation. It centers the performance backdrop and traces of public spectacle as a political lens. Employing fūkeiron—landscape theory that reads place as political testimony—the exhibition presents scenery, procession, and residue as evidence. Landscapes and objects function as archives of dispossession and ongoing resistance.

Moelyono’s five large paintings animate Budhi Wijaya’s troupe and the sugar plantation’s social network, as well as pointed parodies of collective struggle. M. Shodiq’s backdrop centers a Madurese perspective on the “ninja” terror, illustrating how rumor and social rupture reshape geographic and social terrain. Rokateater’s relics — props, worn textiles, and choreography traces — transform ephemeral performance into a living archive. Prihatmoko Moki’s murals and AMUK 1812 artifacts show processions and murals as civic tools that actively reframe contested colonial memory in the kampung.

These works demonstrate that traditional and contemporary performances—such as ludruk, pawai, and theatre—amplify the voices of the oppressed. Curated as a response to an era shaped by structured amnesia and perpetual spectacle, the show urges us to examine backstage spaces, interpret objects as arguments, and treat memory as a method.