Everyone was affected, everyone felt, everyone stuttered in the face of the pandemic. In March 2020 the Indonesian government announced the first positive case of covid 19 in the country. Following the World Health Organization’s recommendations to stay at home, maintain physical distance, wear a mask when leaving the house, and wash hands with soap as often as possible is an effort to prevent the spread of the Covid 19 virus. We are forced to adapt and survive with this new situation.

The local government then requires businesses to follow health protocols such as providing handwashing stations in front of their businesses, requiring sellers and buyers to wear masks and maintain a safe distance of at least 1 meter. The provision of a handwashing station in front of the house is not a new thing, there is a local wisdom called Padasan in the ancient Javanese community, which provides a water container like a clay barrel in front of their house, with the aim that homeowners or people who visit can wash their hands and feet before entering the area inside the house. Over time, this custom has been abandoned by modern society, and has reappeared during this pandemic.

How can artists respond to this situation? At the end of April 2020, I started documenting the handwashing stations that were organized by the community around where I live. I collected the documentation based on one location or one street, then combined them and arranged them into a monument that I call a sanitation monument. The act of making or rearranging these traces is my attempt as an artist to make a marker for today’s event, an event that demands the need to change all our habits in the future.