Walking_The Vacuum Landscape investigates the construction of landscape not as a neutral geographical territory, but as a visual and epistemological system historically engineered by official archives, Western painting, and photography. This book wades into the fog of the present post-colonial landscape to exhume the missing roots buried in the (not-yet-shared) land, addressing the archival silences alongside the ongoing realities of displacement obscured by post-colonialism.
The research is divided into two primary geographical and conceptual inquiries. The first part of the book navigates the plantation landscapes of East Java, unfolding as a self-reflection grounded in decolonial thought. The second part shifts to the urban terrain of Surabaya, documenting the city through contemporary walking practices as a feminist spatial methodology to navigate and reclaim areas dominated by remaining Dutch colonial architecture.
Moving alongside these texts, the landscape is presented photographically. By interweaving recent fieldwork photography with Dutch archives, the visual narrative traces the fractures in colonial terrain and confronts its archival silences. At its core, this book is a collective act of building inter-Asia solidarity for land-rights justice and social movements—a solidarity as fragile as moss, yet impossible to extinguish.
Artistic concept: The Vacuum Landscape
Author: Lo Yuen Ming, Anitha Silvia
Photography and archival research: ChunYao Lin
Editor: Yee Ting Lau
Published by: Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons
Year: 2026
pages: 84
Language: English