How can a meeting be taken far beyond its romanticism without leaving the emotion and beauty it carries?

Can the meeting still be interpreted as beautiful when the two entities that meet come from two different things?

If so, how could the meeting over differences not come as a mere tribute?

Confluence was attended by ten artists with different domiciles, age ranges, experience in art, and different artistic approaches. If I - as the author of this exhibition - can borrow an institutional term, then I say the striking difference in this exhibition is between seniors and juniors. Seniors will be associated with more skill and maturity than juniors. Perhaps this logic arises because it makes experience a hierarchy of knowledge. People with more experience are believed to have more knowledge.

However, it needs to be underlined that knowledge does not just come about. There is an internalization process being carried out. There was a trial process that came up many times. Experience will not become knowledge if there is no opportunity to absorb it. In addition, differences in storytelling and creation methods are also influenced by what is happening today. Perhaps Moelyono, Alfredo, and Ivan Sagita were overwhelmed by a socio-political situation that encouraged them to think on a larger social scale since their early days in making art.

Meanwhile, in the current era when the issues of mental health and information are so fast that many people begin to be overwhelmed when they have to think from a larger scale and start to find their own path from personal experience. Then comes a step to think starting from what is experienced by oneself in the smallest scope. As done by Abenk Alter, Addy Debil, Anton Afganial, Bernandi Desanda, Iskandar Fauzy. They perceive their personal experiences as a way of understanding how the world outside of themselves works. Meanwhile, Marvin Quizon who also understands life through his personal relationship in seeing death.

The smallest scope starting from this personal experience does not mean that it has no connection with a larger scope. Instead, connecting lines are needed for the smallest scope to the larger scope. Thus the meeting on the premise of senior and junior is not present as a celebration of mere differences or an opportunity to compete, but an opportunity to connect two things that really need to be connected. Perhaps, this Confluence exhibition could mean a meeting more than just a celebration.