Modern times with Sinta Tantra

A boy smoking a cigarette. A man playing with forest monkeys. Men and women barefoot and partially clothed walking and freely dancing along dirt paths and through crowded markets.

These are some of the sights experienced by Charlie Chaplin and his brother Sydney upon arriving in Bali in 1932. These rare moments of natural life were documented in black-and-white film by Chaplin and recall "the golden age" in Balinese history before its Westernisation and fondly remembered by Sinta Tantra's family.

Pink vinyl on an industrial window casts a bright glow inviting the viewer towards the original film footage by Chaplin documenting his anthropological studies of pre-modern Balinese and Javanese life. In this world, Tantra presents new paintings, sound, textiles made in collaboration with local artisans, a site-specific mural on the staircase and new sculptures in the garden terrace.

A few years after his trip to Indonesia, Chaplin created his iconic film, "Modern Times" (1936), which uses the allegory of "The Tramp" as a parable on the modernisation and urbanisation of society. Set in the Great Depression, Chaplin's character begins his work at a factory and struggles to find a sense of belonging while encountering the novelty of modern living; a machine created to expedite our consumption (only to falter) and his body famously diving headfirst into its great cogs. Suffering a nervous breakdown, The Tramp goes to prison and finds a moment of solace, a sudden birdcall, his true freedom; only to be released into the modern world again.

With the support of his love, The Gamin, performed by Paulette Goddard, he finds work in a series of places: another factory, a department store, as a waiter and performer at a vaudeville. He wants to settle down, find a home, and live the ‘American dream’, but the constraints of modern society always work against him and these desires. As The Tramp and The Gamin walk off into the hills, on the run from the police, there is an endearing sense of hope that they could still find "paradise".

Initially, "Modern Times" provided a foundation to reflect on Tantra's work and her ongoing interests in modernity to shape a globalised identity, drawing from her roots in Bali, her early years and education in London, where she continues to live and work, and her travels from Italy to Pakistan. Throughout her journey as an artist, her style has adapted 'modernity' as a trope and allegory through her kaleidoscopic vision of colour, light, and form. Masses of monochrome colour become flattened and compressed into sheets or fields, marked by something mechanical and detached with the illusion of being machine-made. References to Art Deco, Bauhaus, Constructivism, and Minimalism create a visual language that interjects these genres with bursts of colour, tropical motifs, and unusual shapes and patterns - in a sense, claiming ownership of