Mula Pala - Pala Mula

What does it mean to nurture?

To tend with patience, to shape with care, to bring forth without force but with quiet persistence. It is the faith of the gardener watering unseen roots, the reverence of the craftsman refining a single line. This philosophy guides Art at WTC, Jakarta Land, where exhibitions serve as spaces of connection, bridging art and community in an era of growing individualism. In this iteration, ISA Art Gallery and Art at WTC, Jakarta Land, it extends this commitment to Yayasan Sekolah Seni Tubaba, an institution located in Tulang Bawang Barat Regency in Lampung since 2016. The school is dedicated to integrating artistic education with local traditions, framing faith not as ritual alone but as a continuous process of learning, exchange, and creative growth.

This ethos is also embodied in the exhibition title MULA PALA-PALA MULA, drawn from Old Sanskrit, Mūla Pāla (The Roots as Guardians) suggests that strengthened foundations become enduring guides, while Pāla Mūla (Guardian of the Roots) speaks to the act of nurturing, ensuring wisdom’s vitality across generations. This cyclical dynamic aligns with enduring pedagogical traditions, where education is not merely transmitted but continuously shaped, a living continuum of inheritance and offering.

Yayasan Sekolah Seni Tubaba (Tubaba Art School) was established—not just as an institution, but as a philosophy. Art became a medium of empathy, a tool to instill the fundamental belief that all human beings stand equal. Through arts, the students in the art school learned to navigate emotions, understand diversity, and build bridges rather than walls. The children who arrive at the school come by different paths—some stepping directly from school, others slipping through the rigid structures of formal education, and some who have long left the classroom, shaped instead by fieldwork and labor. Art, in this space, is not merely an object to be made; it is a language through which futures are inclusive, imagined, reclaimed, and set free.