Of Light and Fire: Memories of a Banner

I am hanging inside a space, facing other stretched fabrics. Each has different lines and colours, although our lives have overlapped at some point.

I was in the same room, at the opening of this exhibition at Ibraaz in London, when Alexander Supartono, a member of Taring Padi, said: ‘When you are fighting you hardly have time to reflect on the tools that you use.’ More than 12,000 kilometres away, ten days later, another voice reached me from Yogyakarta. Ladija Triana Dewi, who joined the collective in 2020, spoke of knowledge production as inseparable from the ‘production’ of something material, arguing that what we come to know is always entangled with the things, gestures, and struggles through which that knowledge takes shape.1

None of us – the fabrics or banners, as they call us – are from here, this cold city. The space that I am now in has a high ceiling and grey flooring. During the day, the sunlight coming through the large openings in the roof multiplies through the reflection of the white walls. Whenever the light comes in and gently lands on our surface, I am transported into another space and time, which they call the past.

Many suns and moons ago, I saw the light from the faces of the people. It was my first experience of light. Before that, I was carried in rolls. I knew I was the cheapest material in the shop. Today, I heard people call me ‘canvas’, but I know I am not canvas because canvas is much more expensive. I am some kind of blended polyester fabric used for street stalls. Perhaps because my material is so closely tied to the street, people weren’t hesitant about placing me on hot asphalt. The paint used on me is not the same as the acrylic you find on canvas paintings – I remember someone mentioning using paint intended for clay roof tiles. 

I am now known as Rakyat Pasti Menang, a large banner with more surface to carry its words. In 1998 I was carried and displayed at cultural and political events. Since then, I have travelled far beyond the place and time of my making, my image of victory travelling with it. Nearly three decades later, the words remain. The image on its surface speaks of victory, though the word seems to have gathered other meanings along the way. Nearly three decades have passed. I wonder what it means to carry the promise of victory for so long. 

As an inanimate object whose consciousness emerged out of nowhere and everywhere, I want to tell you that we, the banners, as part of everyday technology, play a significant role in shaping the alternative media ecosystem, especially in Indonesia. We exist alongside underground radio, mailing lists connecting exiled intellectuals and grassroots activists, photocopied zines, and more. While one group scrawled their drawings onto my surface another group was in charge of duplicating flyers. Three thousand flyers were prepared and distributed on the streets of Yogyakarta.

Perhaps that is what happens to tools as time passes. We are carried from one moment into another, but never arrive unchanged. We have to rediscover what makes us useful again. To build solidarity despite our tiredness involves a collective effort and acknowledging our interdependence.

It was in that city under the sun where I first experienced both light and fire. I saw the light in the painters’ eyes as they kept talking about how exhausting it was to keep doing the same method of street protest. To keep the fiery spirit of the masses aflame, that day I was turned into a background for a stage, where poets, orators, and theatre groups would perform. That is why I bear the fire painted on me, behind the demonstrators. 

Before any brush or tile paint touched my surface, the fire was ignited in discussions and conversations. It was lit by a collective editorial process in which thinking, making, and doing happened simultaneously. This togetherness was essential to pave the way for our victory.

In togetherness, they sat in a circle around me, arguing to translate the frustration in their hearts. Together, we were fed up! We were fed up with the systemic greed of modern feudal power sustained by a parliaments of oligarchs. This collective frustration acted as our editor, guiding their brushes, paints, words, and lines.

I began to understand that perhaps our work was not only to show what people were fighting for. Sometimes, it was to make room for them to gather, to speak, to organise themselves. The work lies in helping to create the conditions in which people can organise, because they are also applying that distribution of knowledge among themselves.  Perhaps that is what we, the banners, are doing. We do not simply carry an image of a struggle but become a vehicle  through which others can carry their own.

Drawing is a rite in which the ‘I’ dissolves into ‘We’. As the brush moved from hand to hand – from student to labourer to street artist – the boundary between the individual and the masses became fluid. From this mixture of sweat, cheap paint, and stifled cries, the swarm intelligence was born through dispersion. A collective force without hierarchy or a sole leader.

Here, each of us – humans and materials alike – interact mutually and locally, responding to the same path. In this ecosystem of struggle, to dissolve is not to be erased. When we merged all interests and backgrounds into the painted demands, we remained a multitude of unique voices. The vivid colours and rough lines painted by trembling hands are proof that we did not dissolve into a cold machine.

Now I am in a much colder place. The light and the fire, I believe, are still present because I am still here. I am not a dead object. I am a mark of time coming all the way from the archipelago to show that the past is always present. No establishment can lock us away. As long as the light in this place greets us, I will project the heat of the asphalt, waiting for the day when I return to the streets. Until then, I will invite anyone who looks at me to join us in frustration, hesitation, and hope.

Tetheg, Yogyakarta, 2026

The writers would like to thank Ladija Triana Dewi and Yerry Nicko Borang for their inputs that made this text possible.

* Translation of banner text (from top to bottom): 

Be the generation of change makers

Disband the parliament, build a genuine people’s assembly

Cast away your inner evil

Protect the rights’ of workers and the unemployed

You are thieves with uniform

Don’t get intoxicated with power

Free education for all.

Against The Militaristic State!

1. Cancel the amendment to the TNI (Indonesian National Armed Forces) Law, Polri (Indonesian National Police) Law, Prosecutor’s Office Law, and the Military Justice Law; pass the Asset Forfeiture Law.
2. Reject the Free Nutritious Meal project (‘Makan Bergizi Gratis’), the Red and White Village Cooperatives (‘Koperasi Desa Merah Putih’), and other National Strategic Projects whose only purpose is to put more money in the pockets of the ruling elite.
3. Reject modern feudal power and oligarchic parliamentarism.
4. Reject attempts to weaken civil society through the rewriting of history by the government.
5. Stop the conversion of protected forests and customary lands by the state and corporations.
6. Build solidarity without borders!