Adi Sundoro’s passion for printmaking has resulted in a combination of various printing techniques that are often
presented in an unconventional manner as he transforms the everyday into a site of subversion, where material becomes metaphor and paper emerges as an arena for protest. In his work in this exhibition Persatuan Mental Tempe, the artist turns to tempeh—Indonesia’s quintessential “people’s food”—not merely as a medium for paper-making, but as a conceptual vessel. Tempeh, known for its accessibility and affordability is reimagined here as a tactile ground for critique, its organic texture embedded with histories of labor, sustenance, and survival. Soekarno’s infamous phrase “Mental Tempe,” a term weaponized to signify weakness or complacency, becomes an entry point for Sundoro’s inquiry.

In these prints, repetition becomes a strategy—large editions recall the visual language of mass movements, evoking a sense of collective assertion rather than submission. Feet, bones, pillars, and platforms emerge as symbols of endurance and structure, interrogating the very notion of “mental” as either fragility or fortitude. The use of letterpress printing, layered onto the deckled, fibrous surface of handmade tempeh-based paper, reinforces this tension. By merging tempeh’s cultural weight with the medium of paper, Sundoro challenges inherited narratives, turning a symbol of supposed weakness into a statement of strength. His works ask: what does it mean to imprint dissent upon the very materials that nourish us? In this interplay between ephemerality and permanence, the fragile and the enduring, Sundoro locates a protest not only in subject but in substance itself.