A busker at an intersection has barely finished singing the refrain of God Bless "Rumah Kita" when the green light turns on. Behind him, party flags and billboards of candidates are still attached to trees and electricity poles.

The recent democratic party was like rainwater that flooded the streets, flowed into the house, and seeped onto the screen of a cellphone at every snippet of time. Some things then feel out of place, making it difficult to distinguish between personal matters, privacy, and public consumption in the torrent of information. Quite often, we find ourselves in an in-between situation: between the domestic space and the public space; the quiet and the noise; the defense or the surrender; the choice or the abstention. Just like a country, a home has always had a unique political form. It is full of various interests, biases, and loyalties of each family member that often collide. There are times when fiery debates about the history of the nation, political figures, and conspiracies a la messages in the family Whatsapp group are not spared at the dinner table. Without realizing it, we find that the state - in whatever form - seeps into the fabric of the home shaping everyone's thoughts and behavior.
Pieces of history come to show us something of the past. Devastation, defeat, irregularities, and so on are duplicated in forms and events that sometimes feel close but vague in recent times, even at home. At that point, there is always the belief that it is better here, our own home after all. The exhibition Playlist #2: Better Here, Our Own Home is the second series initiated by the Stockroom 56 unit as a rotating exhibition of MES 56 artists. The selected works in this exhibition show fragments of events in domestic and public spaces that are scattered from time to time. Political fanaticism, public lies, stories of nationalism cum militarism, and feelings that linger in the domestic space become stories that are never finished. However, we always have a way to feel okay in a house full of murky history. If only the busker at the crossroads had finished the refrain, "it's better here / our own home", are we sure all favors and graces are here?