SUWUNG

Suwung means "the space between" in Javanese, the pause before something takes form. This piece started with two gold objects from The Met's Indonesian collection, both from Java, made about a century apart. One is a small gold ornament from the Eastern Javanese period (10th to 15th century), the other is a tiny finial clip that once sat on the tip of a ceremonial rod, from the late Central Javanese period (9th to 10th century). They were never made for each other, never existed in the same time, and never served the same purpose. Suwung imagines them finally meeting: two lost fragments becoming one complete vessel, holding a scent that carries the space between what was lost and what is remembered.

I turned these two ancient Javanese gold objects into a perfume bottle. The first piece became the body, the second became its cap, reimagined together as one complete vessel, finished with a modern atomizer pump so it works as a real functioning perfume.

I was exploring The Met's open access archive looking for Indonesian pieces when I found these two gold objects. The first one immediately looked like it could be the body of a perfume bottle, but it had no cap. Looking further, I found the second object, and its shape felt like it could complete the first one perfectly. So I combined them into one vessel, even though they're from different centuries and were never meant to serve the same purpose.

I built the whole thing in FLORA AI , working with Claude to write and refine the image prompts step by step, including fixing early prompts that didn't work. Once I had the combined gold version, I wanted the final piece to feel more modern and elegant, so I looked for material references on Pinterest, found a frosted glass style I liked, and asked Claude to help me write a prompt to transform the gold into that glass texture and color. After the bottle was done, I generated the poster visuals the same way, then finished the layout and added text in Illustrator.

Honestly, it started simple. I saw these two objects and immediately felt they belonged together as a perfume bottle. That was really the whole spark.

But it also means something more personal to me. These shapes are so distinctly Indonesian, and that closeness matters to me because I'm Indonesian myself. Working on this also made me realize how many strange, beautiful antique Indonesian objects I never knew existed, sitting in The Met's collection all along. So genuinely, thank you for the excuse to go looking.

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