Named after a Balinese expression for ‘in progress’, the burgeoning coastal creative city of Nuanu, about an hour’s drive north-west of Denpasar, has been established with a focus on all the good things in life – nature (check out its butterfly breeding program), sustainability, wellness, lifestyle and education – but one of its most notable elements is the priority given to art and the creative industries.
Read: A perfect place or Nine Perfect Strangers – the Nuanu creative city
More than just a tacked-on nice to have, artistic installations and endeavours are bolted into the very fabric of this swiftly growing community. Who knows where all this will lead? Apparently, US$100 million has been spent to date, with a reported US$250 million still to go. Will all the grand schemes come to fruition, or will the whole crazy dream dissolve into an overgrown and deserted half-built white elephant in years to come? All we can say is that so far the signs are pretty promising…
Read on to find out more about just some of the the arts experiences already on offer in the creative city:
Suara Music and Arts Festival
Nuanu has already hosted three annual three-day Suara Music and Arts Festivals. Suara, which celebrates ‘art, music, technology, sustainability and education’, invites attendees to embrace ‘the opportunity to collaborate, co-create and shape the future together’. The most recent iteration, in July 2024, welcomed international, regional and local performers on seven stages, including headline acts Angus and Julia Stone, along with Singapore’s Yung Raja, Indonesia’s Ramengvrl and Hong Kong’s Yeti Out. There were also talks by thought leaders, art installations, culinary and wellness experiences and traditional Balinese performances.
Practising what it preaches, Suara boasted an 81% recycling rate this year, preventing over 2800 kilograms of carbon dioxide from being emitted.
Aurora Park
Despite the less than inspiring description – Media Park, which conjures visions of TV OB vans complete with satellite receivers and roving cameras – Aurora is one of the definite highlights of Nuanu so far. Fans of art playgrounds like Lightscape, the light component of Vivid Sydney or Illuminate Adelaide will certainly have some idea of what to expect. But this permanent series of installations and motion activated displays is undeniably spectacular, free of charge and worth visiting both after dark, to appreciate the stunning projections and light installations, and in daylight, when the sculptures and craft exhibits can be better appreciated.
Watch where you’re walking though – Bali’s notoriously loose OH&S restrictions may mean Australians used to a more rigorous approach at home get tripped up, literally, by the uneven paths and protruding roots. Nuanu’s determination to let nature do its thing means that bridges, sculptures and installations are already being partially taken over by the indigenous fauna, and that’s just how they like it.
Nusantara Longhouse Gallery
For temporary art exhibitions, there’s this two-storey venue, with roots in both the communal village houses used in Malaysia and Indonesia, but also seen elsewhere in the world – such as by Native North Americans like the Iroquoi or the Japanese nagaya. Built and already operational, the venue has food and drink bars on the ground floor, with a handful of modest exhibitions on the top. Those exhibitions too, though, are carefully aligned with the Nuanu focus on sustainability and local arts.
When ArtsHub visited, part of the space was occupied by the work of Liina Klauss, an artist who collages mass produced objects to recontextualise function and question what is and isn’t natural. There was also a display of the materials used in her process, in which even the colours being used to paint were made from discarded micro plastics.
The centre of the second storey housed the work of Mary Vespoor, an artist who utilises wabi-sabi philosophies to emphasise the slow and hand-made, and Daniel Kho, a Bali-based artist who ‘blurs lines between art, illustration, meditation and process’.
And at the very end of the upper storey is a currently a collection of traditional instruments (which can be played) and shadow puppets.
THK Tower
Enjoying its grand opening in late September, this tower has pride of place on the clifftop above the Indian Ocean. Designed by French architect Mamou-Mani, its acronym refers to Tri Hita Karana, and it has the potential to be disassembled and reassembled elsewhere in the future. Made from a reclaimed wooden bridge and wrapped in reams and reams of rattan, it’s 24 metres high and will display changing digital projections and artworks at regular nighttime intervals. In the daytime, intrepid visitors will encounter an Enjoying its grand opening in late September, this tower has pride of place on the clifftop above the Indian Ocean.
Designed by French architect Mamou-Mani, its acronym refers to Tri Hita Karana, and it has the potential to be disassembled and reassembled elsewhere in the future. Made from a reclaimed wooden bridge and wrapped in reams and reams of rattan, it’s 24 metres high and will display changing digital projections and artworks at regular nighttime intervals. In the daytime, intrepid visitors will encounter an auspicious 108 steps inside to reach a viewing platform. But it’s unsure yet as to how often the inside will be open to the public, particularly considering what the entire thing is made of, and how smoking stills seems to be so publicly accepted in Bali…
Labyrinth Residence
One of the most impressive and stylish artistic endeavours already established is Labyrinth. With a beautifully designed main studio (with a domed roof facilitating a perfect recording environment) and associated hobbit-hut-like accommodation, Labyrinth is offering an Education Program covering music production, digital art and maker space skills. With 100 students going through the program this year, and double that number scheduled for 2025, Labyrinth also offers a Scholarship Program for 10% of the students. This is open all to all Indonesian citizens, regardless of background or financial situation.
There are residency opportunities already underway for actors, musicians, artists, designers, producers, DJs, sound engineers and the like, and the neat ‘compound within a compound’ has its own pool and sauna facilities, plus really lovely landscaping.
Then there is the genuinely huge 360-degree observatory-like dome next door to the similarly massive art museum, which are both currently under construction, but already eyebrow raising in their scope and potential.
Art classes
If the local children aren’t able to enrol in the on-site schools, they are being particularly welcomed to the free art classes, with the fruits of their labour already in evidence all around Nuanu, including in the Aurora Media Park and Luna Beach Club.
Installations
Far from the criticisms of art washing that other creative cities have faced, Nuanu’s vow of keeping 70% of the land preserved as green space and the sheer prevalence of public art suggest that there is a genuine commitment to the ideals being espoused. There is creativity and imagination everywhere you look, from Daniel Popper’s Earth Sentinels, the giant male and female faces that act as portals on the road into the main hub (and which become magnificent screens for further digital projections after dark) to Alexander Milov’s towering sculpture, The Birth of a New World, which sits overlooking the Luna Beach Club – in the lotus position, pregnant belly proudly protruding and face turned towards the heavens.
Nuana may still be a fledgling project in many ways, but with myriad more projects and ideas taking shape all the time, it really does seem like a place that’s has already taken flight.
The writer travelled to Bali as a guest of Nuanu.
