1970, Denpasar. Lives in Yogyakarta.

Wulia presents her short video, Everything’s OK, with the following words: ‘Yes, sir, everything’s just fine. We’ve lost track of the human scale, but rest assured; everything’s definitely OK’. Tintin produced Everything’s OK for a video festival about the urban problems of Jakarta. The festival was organised by the artist group RUANGRUPA – another participant in this year’s Biennial – in Jakarta in 2003.
Employing the language of irony, the video deals with the impossibility of returning to an ordered city structure in a place that is growing at incredible speed and beyond anyone’s control. Jakarta as a city is being rapidly divided into separate zones and its urban problems are much more intense than İstanbul’s. Yet the video, although representing Jakarta, might call to mind the recent growth of İstanbul with its exaggeratedly sweet interpretation of the ‘development’ of cities reflecting a familiar story in a different situation.
In her work, Wulia regularly experiments with documentary and animation techniques, combining simple, homemade models with digital video manipulation. She chose Styrofoam as a modeling material due to its hideous appearance and non-biodegradable quality. Throughout the video, this material is subjected to paint and other chemical solvents to transform it from ‘a white dream’ to ‘a black nightmare’ – until there is nothing left to do except apply a new layer of white.

Esra Sarıgedik Öktem

www.wulia.com

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