ghOstMiSt is a Balinese experimental duo that focuses on practices of reflexive improvisation toward phenomenological inquiries into confronting cultural contradictions. The project was founded by Dewa Ayu Eka Putri and Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena in the summer of 2020. Born out of a distanced practice during the COVID-19 pandemic (Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena in the United States and Dewa Ayu Eka Putri in Indonesia), ghOstMiSt releases monthly artistic pieces on social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram) to a Glocal audience: “We created the duo out of frustrations with exoticist interactions and a desire to confront cultural contradictions through performance. We intend to create artistic and ideological commotion through a general co-motion of contemporary Balinese artists. In doing so, we attempt to thwart the assumptions that Balineseness means being solely ethereal artists tied to Indigenous animist practices. By enacting performative inquiries of Balinese-ness we question spiritual and cosmological epistemologies of performance. It is important that we teach through community-based methods and engage in diverse participation in efforts to create works of art that promote creativity, while understanding historical privilege to address social and philosophical issues.”

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