Indonesian artist Jompet Kuswidananto presents ‘Ghost Ballad,’ a site-specific installation at Pepper House, as a part of the 6th Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2025–26), marking the journey from dictatorship to democracy and bringing together once-thriving, banned music and performances. The work uses his signature objects of ‘bodiless’ figures to gather the fractured chronology of Indonesia, acting as a bridge between the Malabar Coast and Java. There emerges, through this artwork, a connection among Indonesia, the Malabar coasts, and even Goa, which may sound like a ghost story, and it’s a musical one at that.
The installation is an introspection of how culture endures through ‘transmutation’—from authoritarian repression to colonial subjugation, and ultimately to a precarious democracy. It is here that one comes to understand that the music, drama, and sounds included are all forms of representation, reflecting it, sounding it. These ghosts are the ones who sing. Their songs not only carry nostalgia about their land. Those songs encompass both that region and other areas connected to it.
The exchanges between the Fado music tradition brought by Portuguese sailors and slaves who arrived in Indonesia in the sixteenth century, and the Keroncong music style from the soil of Java, along with the musical styles that emerged from them, created a space for cultural exchange within Indonesia. The music that emerged from these two styles, and some of the songs within it, has immense potential to influence the Indonesian people. These long-voyaging musical forms later crossed the seas again, reaching as far as Goa, along with their history, awakening artistic audiences there, as Kuswidananto does.
Artist Jompet Kuswidananto speaks against the background of ‘Ghost Ballad’ exhibited at the Biennale.
1) What inspired you to create Ghost Ballad, and how did the idea of “ghosts who sing” first emerge in your practice?
The idea for Ghost Ballad emerged from my long-standing interest in how history lingers in landscapes, objects, and collective memory, often in forms that feel almost ghostly, especially in a country that is experiencing colonialism and authoritarianism like Indonesia.
When I was invited to KMB26, I saw the complex layers of history in Kochi, and I was interested in working on the legacy of Portuguese expansionism through a melancholic musical expression that travels along its trade route to Java.
The notion of “ghosts who sing” came from thinking about music as a vessel of memory. Melancholic musical traditions such as Fado and Keroncong often carry emotions of longing, loss, and displacement. In Ghost Ballad, the singing ghosts become a metaphor for voices from the past, histories that were silenced or forgotten but continue to echo through sound, melody, and atmosphere.
2) How does Ghost Ballad reflect Indonesia’s journey from colonialism and dictatorship to democracy?
When I started exploring this musical legacy of Fado, I was just trying to connect the dots on some historical events, especially those in the 80’s during the height of the authoritarian regime in Indonesia. Unexpectedly, there was a trend of Lagu Cengeng – sad song, weepy song, and melancholic song. The regime was unhappy and decided to ban that kind of music because it was considered to be out of step with the idea of national developmentalism.
And then I tried to look a little further back, and the same banishment to melancholic music also happened under Japanese occupation in Indonesia during World War II. The reason was pretty much the same: melancholic music is not in tune with the spirit of war.
And then I saw that this melancholic musical expression may be deeply rooted in centuries of Portuguese expansionism in Asia. Fado music emerged in Lisbon and later travelled across the Portuguese empire. Through trade routes, forced migration, and military movements.
As it spread, it evolved into many different musical forms, such as Mando in Goa, Cafrinha in Sri Lanka, Branyo in Malacca, and Kerocong in Java. This project examines how common people under continuous oppression adopted and reshaped melancholic music as a quiet, persistent form of resilience, enabling individuals to express loss, displacement, and longing in contexts where direct resistance was often impossible.
3) The installation uses bodiless figures. What does the absence of bodies represent in relation to history and memory?
The legend of mysterious marching sounds from 1980s Yogyakarta exactly provoked me to see how sonic experience and ghost stories can trigger people’s memories with striking precision, recalling the turbulent pasts and the unfinished business they left behind. (In Yogyakarta in the 1980’s, people occasionally heard the faint sound of a mysterious drum band drifting through the sky before dawn. Its origin was never known, and it soon became a popular ghost story. People offered different explanations: some said it was the ghosts of Prince Diponegoro’s soldiers from the Java War; others believed it was the souls of pemoeda, Indonesian young freedom fighters. Some thought they were ghosts of Dutch soldiers, while others heard the sound as running footsteps – believed to be the ghosts of communists still fleeing after being massacred by soldiers.) And then, since 2007, I started exploring this ghostly presence to speak about different turbulent pasts in Indonesian history.
4) What role does Fado play in shaping the sonic environment of Ghost Ballad?
The curatorial team was doing a great job of helping me develop the project; they connected me with amazing people in the Fado music scene, and I was finally happy that a Goan Fadista, Nadia Rebello, was willing to contribute her beautiful voice to the installation. Her voice, together with the Indonesian Keroncong singer’s voice, Giwang Topo, was the main sonic experience in this installation. I always believe that sound is a bridge between the material and immaterial world, and here, those voices may bring the visitors to see the installation beyond its materiality. I’d also like to share how history is felt rather than told.
5) How do melancholic musical traditions like Fado and Keroncong carry memories of colonial histories?
From this music, I see how history is carried by bodies living under continuous oppression from shifting power dynamics. It is a way for ordinary people to hold and transmit histories of longing, displacement, and survival that were never fully recorded in official archives.
6) What impact do you hope the soundscape—drumbeats, guitars, and whispering voices—has on the audience’s experience?
I hope that after experiencing my installation, the visitors will listen to melancholic songs in a different way.
7) How does Ghost Ballad reinterpret melancholy as a form of resistance rather than weakness?
Reflecting on how the Suharto regime banned melancholic songs in the 80’s, and the Japanese ruler banned them during World War II, it is clear evidence that this musical expression disrupts the power operation. It works because many people have no ability to perform in such a direct confrontative way. However, this quiet resistance is mostly unseen by history.
8) During the authoritarian regime of Suharto, melancholic music was suppressed. How does your work revisit that censorship?
History repeats, and it is repeating now in Indonesia. I created this work as my way to learn from history, and then I share it with others.
9) The Indonesian Minister of Information Harmoko once banned melancholic songs from television. What does this moment reveal about the political power of emotion in art?
I think this moment shows that emotion in art is never neutral. Feelings such as sadness, longing, or vulnerability can challenge official narratives and political slogans. In that sense, melancholy carries a subtle political power: it allows people to express doubt.
10) In what ways do the “ghosts” represent forgotten or erased people from colonial and authoritarian histories?
When we talk about Indonesian colonial history, firstly, we must acknowledge that there is a vast difference in the ability to materialise memory among people of different social classes in colonial society. The education system was only for elites until around 1900, three centuries after colonialism started; by then, most people were illiterate. So basically, most Indonesian colonial memories are preserved in many forms beyond formal archives. During authoritarianism, historians faced censorship and banishment.
I’m always interested in how unrecorded history shapes our consciousness and seeps into our daily activities. It is like a ghost.
11) Why did you decide to create the installation as a band of ghostly musicians rather than a single central figure?
I love working with layers, masses, and time. For KMB26, I surely started everything from the existing conditions. The space came first. It is a long, corridor-like space that instantly gave me the idea for a long, parade-like installation. It allows visitors to slowly see the layers and the masses of the work by walking through it.
12) The figures wear clothing and shoes from Kochi and Yogyakarta. How does this material choice connect different geographies and histories?
First, I’d like to present this common people’s parade of ordinary used clothes. I had no clear definition of what common people are, but basically, I can work with any used clothes from anyone who is willing to contribute. So, the KMB team helped me to collect those clothes locally while I brought some from Yogyakarta. In the end, during the installation, you cannot tell which clothes are from Kochi and which are from Yogyakarta. Secondly, I don’t want to ship anything; I’d like to work with local materials and carry a few items.
Krispin Joseph PX, a poet and journalist, completed an MFA in art history and visual studies at the University of Hyderabad and an MA in sociology and cultural anthropology from the Central European University, Vienna.
