“The Vacuum Landscape” is an investigative photographic research project that retraces the historical and physical contours of plantation fields in East Java.
By forging a critical bridge between the clinical silence of Dutch colonial archives and the visceral reality of contemporary field research in Indonesia.
The series unpacks a visual narrative of land that has been perpetually overwritten and reengineered through cycles of production, a palimpsest of relentless and exhaustive extraction.
The work navigates the quiet oblivion of postcolonial topographies, capturing the dissonant fragments that linger in the wake of industrial mimicry and the relentless cycle of mass production. These are landscapes in a state of “post-decolonization,” territories that have transitioned from colonial extraction to the modern hegemony of private corporate control. In collaboration with local art institutions in Surabaya and Banyuwangi, the project probes these restricted fields, where the ghosts of the past remain embedded in the soil.
From forgotten cemeteries hidden in the undergrowth to abandoned palm groves that mirror the rigid geometry of the archives, recurring patterns begin to emerge. The series reveals a striking spatial phenomenon: a “vacuum” of ownership. In these interstices, the landscape exists in a state of suspension, belonging neither to the local community nor to the historical narrative, but held in the sterile grip of unresolved histories.
These images do not merely document scenes; they interrogate the spatial inertia of the plantation system. By observing the fractured corners left behind by the machinery of history, The Vacuum Landscape acts as a vessel for collective witnessing, confronting the unyielding vestiges of power and the haunting of a land caught in an insoluble void. It is a portrait of a reality in stasis, where the transition between eras has not led to liberation but to a permanent state of suspended belonging.
About ChunYao Lin
ChunYao Lin is a visual artist based between the Netherlands and Taiwan. Drawing on a background in lens-based media and photojournalism, his practice employs moving images, performance, and reconstructed narratives to navigate the complexities of transitional and undefined landscapes. His work interrogates the mechanisms of spatial control and the “domestication of seeing,” questioning inherited aesthetics within temporary and contested environments.
His multidisciplinary practice, spanning photography, video, and site-specific walking, has been exhibited internationally at institutions including IKOB – Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgium, Casco Art Institute, BAK – basis voor actuele kunst, and Framer Framed in the Netherlands, as well as the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and MOCA Taipei in Taiwan. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Japan.
He is currently conducting extensive fieldwork in East Java, Indonesia, and in the Netherlands, investigating the evolution of plantation landscapes. By bridging archival research with contemporary local land struggles, he explores the transformation of these territories from sites of colonial extraction into hubs of corporate power, furthering a critical dialogue on the intersection of land, history, and power. [Official Website]
