"My other work, “Timur Merah Project V; The Verge of Mortal Ground” (2021), was a painting installation (Image 6) I created during the pandemic. The work was exhibited at ARTJOG Resilience 2019, an annual art event in Yogyakarta. The theme was of the endurance of artists working during the pandemic and I responded to my reading of Calonarang. Calonarang recounts the tense situation of an outbreak and spread of a mysterious disease that caused everyone to lock themselves at home—what we know today as kuncitara (lockdown). The artwork was hung in the middle of a room and installed in a circular formation. The installation intended to entice the audience to step inside the painting's circle and reflect on a series of visual stories where the epidemic spread with no cure to be found, thereby causing human mobility to come to a halt. It is to be noted that at the same time as the Calonarang story, texts on medicine and/or medicinal plants (usadha) were also widespread, a situation that reminds us of how solutions for modern human problems could be derived from Eastern knowledge and wisdom."
– Citra Sasmita, “Timur Merah Project: A Pilgrimage of Narrative, Memory, and Historical Legacy”