An Election Without Artists
The Outgoing Indonesian President’s Campaigns Inspired Songs, Paintings, and Poems. Creatives’ Silence in This Race Speaks Volumes
The absence of art in Indonesia’s presidential election has been noticeable.
Back in 2014, when Joko Widodo—known as Jokowi—campaigned to become the seventh president of this republic, it was remarkable how many of us artists put our creative support behind him. We wrote songs, comics, paintings, poems, and more. The Indonesian artist Hari Prast even made a series of illustrations portraying Jokowi in the style of Tintin, the famous Franco-Belgian comic book. The Tintin-style renderings captured Jokowi’s promise. He was a simple businessman, not a hedonistic politician, …
