Heri Dono has been a leading figure in Indonesian art since the early 1980s and is now one of the most prominent contemporary South-East Asian artists. 

Glass vehicles 1995 continues Dono’s representation of an ambiguous human figure, neither masculine nor feminine. They are instead the ‘everyman’, the ‘orang kecil’ or ‘little man’. The ‘orang kecil’ is a figure of great rhetorical power in Indonesian society, privileging group identity over individual ego, and is integral to Javanese conceptions of person and society.

In this work, Glass vehicles, 15 becak (tricycle) drivers, the archetypal ‘orang kecil’, are represented by half-human, half-doll figures. Reminiscent of wayang puppets, they each stand inside a glass container called ‘krupkuk’ — a container for prawn crackers.

Dono was trained by wayang puppet master, Sukasman, and was inspired by the traditional art form and its ability to canvas contemporary social ideas through painting, theatre, dance and music.

Drawing on mythologies of the Ramayana and Mahabharata and the heritage of social critique, Dono’s wayang-like puppets sit inside kingly chariots. These chariots allude to the local form of public transportation.