How to Pin Down Smoke is an expansive guide to ruangrupa and their singular and multifaceted practice. Formed in Jakarta in 2000 against a background of authoritarianism, economic crisis and youth movements, ruangrupa is an art initiative whose work playfully subverts traditional art- and exhibition-making, offering a living model of collective organisation, sustainable institution-building and ways of relating to one another.

Through new commissions, interviews and extensive archival documentation, this publication explores how ruangrupa’s 25-year history expands understandings of “art”, “exhibition” and “publics”, integrating elements of popular culture, media technology and contemporary urban life.

How to Pin Down Smoke is published in partnership with Asia Art Archive; the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; documenta Institut; and the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg.