The Altar of Change reveals Salomé’s search for her Timorese identity

'The Altar of Change' is an installation made primarily of textiles, filled with an overwhelming amount of detail and activity. Monumental in scale and carefully crafted, the work is the result of Salomé Kopong’s (student Illustration Design) exploration of her Timorese identity. How does she relate to it, and what does she actually know about her family history? These are questions accompanied by uncertainty and doubt. The altar is intended as a space of acceptance, where conflicting emotions are allowed to exist side by side.

The right side of the altar consists of textiles and seating in shades of blue, symbolizing water. On the left, earthy tones represent wood and grounding. The circular forms that reappear throughout the work are compared by Kopong to a droplet hitting water and creating ripples that continue endlessly. The origin of the droplet is unknown, yet its ripples remain visible. Kopong draws a parallel with her Timorese heritage: she does not know all the stories, but still feels their presence to this day.

Elements from Timorese-Indonesian and Dutch culture appear on the tops of the poufs. On the “water side,” I see ginger deeply rooted in the earth while simultaneously sprouting in many directions, fluid like water itself. The altar has no fixed boundaries; something can be both ever-changing and grounded at the same time. Between the seats, in the center of the altar, the opposites intertwine into a figure with a tiger’s claw and a water snake curling around one leg.

Next to the altar, earlier works are displayed on a red wall. One of them tells a magical story that Kopong heard from her uncle about her grandmother. “Who was she besides being the mother of thirteen children?” Her grandmother was known as a gifted storyteller. One story tells of a young goatherd who emerged from the forest in shock after discovering a magical stone from which a snake appeared and transformed into a man. When Kopong’s grandmother, still a curious young girl, went to see the stone herself, she saw the future. She saw modern technology, airplanes, and a journey to the Netherlands. Like her Timorese grandmother, Kopong knows how to enchant through storytelling.