Aliansyah Caniago

Aliansyah Caniago (b. 1987, Indonesia) is an artist based in Banda Aceh whose practice spans site-specific installation, performance, painting, and archival research. Growing up amid rapid industrialisation in Indonesia, his work critically examines ecological loss, extractivism, and the consequences of modernity for both human and more-than-human worlds. Since 2016, his research has focused on Barus, North Sumatra, once the centre of global camphor trade, where colonial extraction led to the destruction of sacred camphor forests and the erosion of Batak cosmologies.

Camphor functions in his work as both material and metaphor, connecting spiritual belief, colonial science, and industrial technologies such as celluloid film. Through artistic practices involving scent, touch, ritual, and the body, Aliansyah activates fragmented archives and oral histories to reanimate suppressed narratives and embodied memory. His works have been presented internationally, including at Documenta Fifteen (Germany), MUMA (Australia), the Jakarta Biennale. He is a graduate of MA Art and Ecology, Goldsmiths, University of London.