Introducing Kanvas Mutiny: A New Life for the Old Sails of Arka Kinari. 

After moving this ship sixty-thousand nautical miles, stopping in twenty-five nations, from the tropics towards both poles, our ragged sails could no longer hold up to the wind and had to be replaced. But they will instead keep on traveling as massive works of visual art. 

The six sails will be painted by artists from each of the six continents that the ship has visited, in a process that brings artists onto the sea and into collaboration with coastal peoples. The completed works can tour and exhibit independently from Arka Kinari’s voyage, reaching lands, contexts and spaces beyond the range of the mothership.

With an emphasis on bringing the artists onboard as resident sailors, Kanvas Mutiny intertwines artists with the ship’s crew and coastal peoples of Arka Kinari’s Indonesian home waters.

With an emphasis on bringing the artists onboard as resident sailors, Kanvas Mutiny intertwines artists with the ship’s crew and coastal peoples. In August, 2024, the Javanese artist collective Taring Padi painted Arka Kinari's largest and most central former sail, representing Asia and the ship's home waters of Indonesia.

Artists: Taring Pardi

Curators: Grey Filastine, Nova Ruth

Currently confirming inaugural exhibition

Crafted in Poland during the Solidarność revolution and first installed on the ship in 1990, the sails saw thirty years of use, including an Arctic voyage, before coming into the hands of Filastine & Nova. They’ve since carried Arka Kinari through the North Sea, Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific, three years of Indonesian voyages, and all the way down to the Antarctic winds of Tasmania, stopping in twenty- five nations, surviving squalls, cyclones and six months of statelessness during the pandemic.
In this long journey the sails have seasoned from unblemished white to a tea-stained color,
and also show their age through the dozens of hand-stitched patches of emergency repairs.

Through Kanvas Mutiny the sails will not only continue to travel the world, but also have their own voice, raising awareness of threatened seas and coastal communities, deepening our kinship with the ocean’s human and more-than-human life, and remaining as artifacts to outlast the ship and her crew.

The completed pieces may exhibit singularly or as an ensemble, and may be transported with the ship or independently as six folding canvases weighing under twenty kilograms per sail.

• Internationally renowned artist collective, Taring Pardi is an art collective based in Yogyakarta Indonesia that uses art as a tool for political expression and education for all.

• Requires rigging indoors and engineering sign off for outdoors.

• Dimensions: 13 x 6.5 x 10.5 m

• Yet to be exhibited

• Not represented

• Link to dossier.

• Link to full video of production

Kanvas Mutiny has been made possible through support from Kindle.

Article - Griffith University, Taring Pardi Exhibition 2024

Taring Pardi Portfolio

Promotional Image Pack

Promotional Video

• Requires rigging indoors and engineering sign off for outdoors.

• Dimensions: 13m x 6.5m x 10.5m

• Link to dossier.

As with all Arka Kinari presentations we request exhibitors choose wisely with material usage for presenting our work, test alternate options and use us as an excuse to implement and try ideas that are less intensive on the earth.

We also ask that you encourage audiences and visitors to the exhibition to use public transport to access, or to car pool if motor vehicles are required.