Have you ever wondered what exists beyond the edges of certainty—the spaces between destinations, the pauses between decisions, the thresholds where one world blurs into another? Well, Where the Sidewalks End, the latest exhibition at ISA Gallery, invites you to step into these liminal spaces, where the familiar dissolves and the unknown hums with possibility.
The collection of works that will be exhibited from 27 February to 4 April 2025, are tributes to Shel Silverstein’s evocative 1974 poem, an invitation to pause at life’s in-between spaces and revel in the strange expanse of uncertainty.
Liminality, this state of transition, this in-between spaces, have always been a peculiar creature. Neither here nor there, it manifests in shadowed alleyways, deserted train stations, or that unsettling moment between waking and sleeping. It is both infinite and ephemeral, a space where the rules bend just enough to allow for possibility. The artists in this exhibition have seized this elusive moment and, instead of coming with the desire to tame it, they have chosen to embrace and dance with it.
Sinta Tantra straddles worlds—her Balinese heritage, her London upbringing, and the precise geometry of her abstract compositions. Her work feels like a bridge between the structured and the intuitive, the logical and the lyrical. Then there’s Ida Lawrence, whose narrative-driven canvases play a delicate game of connection and disconnection, weaving together stories that never quite settle.
If you prefer liminality in self-reflection, Vanessa Jones will oblige. Her haunting figurative paintings delve into femininity and myth, using the charged lens of self-portraiture to question identity’s shifting nature. Likewise, Rose Cameron brings the tension of displacement into her work, teasing the line between assimilation and heritage, exposure and concealment.
And what is liminality if not a meditation on time? Eun Vivian Lee captures its cyclical nature, her painstakingly painted dots forming hypnotic grids and circles, a visual mantra of transformation. Meanwhile, Ines Katamso turns her gaze to the Anthropocene, examining the fossils of our own making—plastics, minerals, residues of human ambition—trapped in sedimentary layers of forgotten history.
For those drawn to mythology and migration, Jumaadi spins folk narratives into tangible forms, making the ephemeral solid. His works evoke dreamscapes that feel like whispered secrets passed down through generations. Similarly, Tara Kasenda, armed with a background in transdisciplinary media, blurs the line between past and future, traditional and contemporary.
Zico Albaiquni, a disruptor in every sense, wielding colour to fracture the colonial gaze on Indonesian landscapes. His reinterpretation of the Mooi Indie tradition—a picturesque, romanticised vision of Indonesia—peels back the canvas to expose the commodification of paradise. In contrast, A. Sebastianus deconstructs material culture itself, questioning how rituals and objects mutate in the churn of modernity.
The sidewalk in this exhibition plays the part of a threshold. It is a place to linger, to hesitate, to wonder. It is the moment before the leap, as well as the exhale before the plunge. These works remind us that uncertainty is not a void, but a fertile ground that is ripe for imagination, reinvention, and rediscovery.
So, if you’re one to find yourself standing at a crossroads (literal or metaphorical), ISA Gallery offers a preposition to pause, reel it all in and embrace the uncertainty. Because something else always awaits at where the sidewalk ends.
The Paper Menagerie Joins the Journey
If Where the Sidewalks End invites us to step beyond the edges of certainty, then The Paper Menagerie asks us to consider what we carry with us along the way. Running concurrently at ISA Gallery from 24 February to 4 April 2025, this companion exhibition delves into paper’s duality, its ability to preserve and to perish; to hold memory yet be forgotten.
Bringing together 29 artists from across disciplines. The Paper Menagerie transforms this everyday material into a vessel for identity, resistance, and personal history. Paper is cut, folded, sculpted, and layered, revealing its potential beyond mere documentation. Inspired by Ken Liu’s short story of the same name, the exhibition reflects on the delicate yet enduring ties between culture, language, and belonging. Just as Liu’s origami animals whisper a love story that time threatens to erase, so too do these works capture fleeting moments, waiting to be read and remembered.
In many ways, The Paper Menagerie and Where the Sidewalks End exist in conversation. One examines the threshold between the known and the unknown, while the other maps the emotions, histories, and traces we leave behind. Together, they invite visitors to reconsider not just where they stand, but what they carry forward.
ISA Gallery opens from 11.00 am – 06.00 pm and closes on Mondays and Sundays.
For more details, visit isaartanddesign.com or follow @isaart.id on Instagram.
ISA Art Gallery at WISMA 46 – KOTA BNI
Jl. Jendral Sudirman Kav. 1
Tanah Abang, 10220
Jakarta, Indonesia
+62 811 1317 023
