Printmaker Muhlis Lugis’s large-scale woodcuts explore his cultural heritage by reflecting and recontextualising Bugis customs, philosophy and mythology. Grounded in the teachings and culture of the Bugis community of South Sulawesi, his meticulous compositions reaffirm the significance of cultural practice and identity amid the ever-changing landscape of Indonesian society.

For the Asia Pacific Triennial, Lugis presents a series of traditional ancestral stories from a contemporary Bugis perspective. In To balo 2019, the artist reimagines traditional narratives of the To balo (‘striped people’), a small community inhabiting a remote area in Barru Regency, South Sulawesi. Throughout his Sangiang Serri (Goddess of Rice) works, Lugis illustrates significant events and rituals dedicated to the rice goddess detailed in the influential epic Bugis narrative La Galigo.