April, 2026 Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre will be transformed into a vivid, unsettling night market this May with Pasar Malam | Night Market—a major exhibition of large-scale screenprints by leading Indonesian and Australian artists, exploring the seductive and subversive energy of Southeast Asia’s after-dark economies.

Step beyond the everyday and into a world where the rules no longer apply. In the Indonesian night market, fake Rolex watches are sold alongside fried grasshoppers and mystical amulets. Tattooed operators run precarious rides. A haunted house beckons. A giant python coils nearby. In the shadows: gangsters, pickpockets, and revolutionaries.

If the morning market is for groceries and gossip, the night market is its dark mirror—a place where suppressed fears, desires and belief systems surface. Pasar Malam draws on this charged atmosphere, with artists exploring themes of mysticism, mythology, ritual, and the allure of the “other.” For some, the works uncover stories omitted from official histories; for others, they map psychological terrain or challenge dominant cultural narratives.

The exhibition features intricately detailed, large scale screenprints (200 x 150 cm), produced at Yogyakarta’s renowned Krack Print Studio in collaboration with 15 Indonesian and Australian artists. Produced by Krack co-founders Malcolm Smith and Sukma Smita, in partnership with John Cruthers from 16albermarle Project Space, the project is a rare cross-cultural exchange that brings together diverse artistic voices through the medium of print.

Visitors will enter through a loket (ticket booth), drawn in by coloured lights, flags, and a specially commissioned soundscape of clattering rides, spruikers and experimental Indonesian music—immersing audiences in a sensory night market experience.

Originally launched in Yogyakarta in 2025, Pasar Malam has toured Indonesia and Darwin, arriving in Fremantle as a fully realised, multi-sensory exhibition.

At Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre, Pasar Malam is expanded through two accompanying exhibitions that deepen its exploration of mythology, identity and the uncanny.

Leyla Stevens presents GROH GOH (Rehearsal for Rangda), a haunting video work that reimagines performance traditions surrounding Rangda—the Balinese queen of the graveyard and figurehead of black magic. Stevens’ work moves between ritual and rehearsal, embodiment and distance, questioning how cultural narratives are transmitted, performed and transformed. The video is presented alongside a sculptural installation made from woven prasok fibres, extending the work into physical space and material tradition.

In contrast, Ida Lawrence’s A Bigger Misha is a wry, narrative-rich painting about social performance and belonging. Contrasting a polished family portrait with an unruly, outsized tribute to the “favourite” dog, the work playfully probes the pressures of appearing normal—and the absurdity of trying.

Together, these two presentations broaden the exhibition’s scope—shifting between the mythological and the personal, the ritualistic and the psychological—while reinforcing the night market as a space where multiple realities coexist.

A unique Indonesian–Australian initiative, Pasar Malam invites artists from both countries to collaborate with one of Indonesia’s leading print studios. The result is a dynamic range of perspectives on Indonesian society and culture since independence in 1945—while also speaking to universal human experiences of fear, desire, secrecy and transformation.

Artists

Australian artists
Amina McConvell | Ida Lawrence | Jumaadi | Leyla Stevens | Malcolm Smith | Tobias Richardson

Indonesian artists
Alfin Agnuba | Enka Komariah | Ipeh Nur | Prihatmoko Moki | Restu Ratnaningtyas | Rizqi Maulana | Rudi Hermawan | Tamarra | Timoteus Anggawan Kusno

Event Details

Pasar Malam | Night Market
Walyalup | Fremantle Arts Centre
9 May – 8 August 2026 | Opening: Friday 8 May from 6.00pm | Free entry