Indonesian artist’s Venice installation reimagines CIA-backed female guerrilla fighter
Len Karamoy, a leader of an Indonesian rebel movement, is the focus of Natasha Tontey’s video installation at the 2026 Venice Biennale
In Venice, Italy, Indonesian artist Natasha Tontey has resurrected an oft-forgotten female guerrilla fighter from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and moved her – and her band of girl muscle – into a four-century-old building that was once used for providing spiritual support to those sentenced to death by hanging.
The message to 17th century visitors entering what is now the Ateneo Veneto cultural institute was that there was only one way to free the souls of the dead in purgatory: by buying the church’s goodwill. That message was clear to all who could see Jacopo Palma il Giovane’s Cycle of Purgatory (1600) paintings covering the great hall’s ceiling.
The main protagonist in this fragmented, non-linear fantasy, which borrows from the horror and Western film genres, is Len Karamoy, who was a leading member of Permesta – a CIA-supported rebel movement that waged war against the Indonesian government from 1958 to 1961.
For Tontey, who is also Minahasan, Karamoy is a symbol of the countless forgotten women in history who were victims of betrayal and injustice, and whose fury could well be “haunting” the world today.