Jumaadi and Michael Toisuta, 2026. © Jumaadi & Songlines. Image courtesy of the artists.
Jumaadi and Michael Toisuta will contribute to the launch of the Powerhouse Museum, Parramatta, Sydney with a series of performances, taking place over the duration of the Opening Weekend (Nov. 19 – 21, 2026). Jumaadi’s traditional shadow puppet performances in conjunction with the score, developed by Michael Toisuta (SongLines) have been commissioned by the Powerhouse Museum committee.
About the Upcoming Performances, Courtesy of Michael, Jumaadi and SongLines:
Sampai, Tak Sampai (To Arrive, Not To Arrive) is a live performance installation created by visual and performance artist Jumaadi and composer and sound designer Michael Toisuta. This living, breathing work grows from Jumaadi’s paintings and unfurls through projection, sound and performance examining the complexity of migration driven by political or natural catastrophes, both between and within countries. It reflects on love, strength, longing, separation, displacement and loneliness.
Drawing inspiration from wayang beber, an ancient storytelling form where painting is the heart of the performance, Sampai, Tak Sampai speaks to real histories such as the Gajahmungkur Dam, an Indonesian government project in the late 1970s that forced entire communities, including a village of wayang kulit artisans, to leave their ancestral land. The work centres on landscapes that carry memories like these, where events have caused boyongan (the act of carrying all your belongings, hopes and dreams when relocating a home) and bedol deso (picking up and re-assembling an entire village in a new location). Such destruction of land and community is a global issue that has echoed across the world for generations and continues today, touching every human life in ways both visible and unseen.
Sampai, Tak Sampai occupies the space between installation, performance and theatre, resisting easy categorisation. At the centre of the work is an act of making: images, objects, bodies, shadows and sound are assembled and transformed before the audience, as an exhibition continually comes into being. In durational performative periods, the artists respond to the space, its objects and one another, creating different states of the exhibition. Audiences can return to the space at another time, and the world may have changed: different images emerge, different sounds are heard, and new relationships between the works take shape.
The performance brings Jumaadi’s intricate paintings to life through multiple cameras, projections and movement. Audiences are invited to encounter the images in ways that step outside the usual gallery experience. Some paintings are created on stage and projected as they emerge, giving the work its own sense of ephemerality. (…)
About Jumaadi and Michael’s ongoing performance projects.