Anastasia Astika

kohesi Initiatives is pleased to present Faux Nostalgia, a solo presentation by Anastasia Astika, features more than 15 new bodies of works, exploring the intricate relationship between memory, identity, and belonging. The presentation tied to the concept of recollection, where images are enhanced and reproduced, just as memory operates through cycles of recall and distortion: collaged and repainted.

Working between the logics of printmaking and painting, Astika presents illuminated textiles and faux jewellery inspired by chandeliers, traditional Javanese adornments, and portable objects of beauty. These pieces embody dualities—intimate yet artifi cial, signifi cant yet mass-produced, heirloom yet imitation. They act as fragile anchors amid transience, capturing the slippage between truth and reconstruction. Astika’s practice is deeply informed by her experience of moving across cities and temporary homes, a voluntary form of rantau. Her works resist singular narratives of memory and instead embrace ambiguity of repeated emotional attachments.

In Faux Nostalgia, Astika’s works extend in exploration of shifted chandeliers, symbols of distant grandeur and estranged elegance, to intimate adornments, notably traditional Javanese hairpins and earrings. And yet, despite this shift from architectural fi xtures to bodily ornaments, a subtle thread connects these seemingly disparate objects: both mediate identity through beauty, aspiration, and imitation. While the chandelier signifi es remote desires suspended beyond reach, the accessories embody intimacy, portable, fragile anchors amid transience. Tika's works do not offer resolution; they linger between recognition and doubt. This exhibition does not attempt to reconstruct memory but instead examines the act of reconstruction itself. Does nostalgia lose its power when brought into complete visibility?