Taxing

A poetic response to Kareem Soenharjo’s solo exhibition at Studio22nya

A&M Creative Edit is where we publish a creative response to an ongoing exhibition or display every month. These pieces can take a range of forms, from ekphrasis, to poetry, microfiction, creative nonfiction and more.

Kareem Soenharjo, Pond, 2025, graphite, watercolour and gouache on paper. Image courtesy of Studio22nya. Photo taken by Hervan.

Taxing is Kareem Soenharjo’s debut exhibition at Studio22nya, Jakarta, Indonesia. Anchored by the etymology of “taxing”, Kareem articulates taxing as a lifelong headspace (un)settled by the anxiety, contradiction, and the invisible weight of everyday life. Originally published in the exhibition’s catalogue, this poem by Sabrina Citra invites readers to enter the state of being “taxed” as elucidated through Kareem’s works, paying heed to the embeddedness of harm and violence in Jakartan contemporary life.

Kareem Soenharjo, Business Expansion, 2025, graphite, watercolour, acrylic, pen and glue on paper. Image courtesy of Studio22nya. Photo taken by Hervan.

there is an abysssssss: 

of being, of language, of nothing – 

of promisepossibilityprogress that threads as an illusion engulfing [you, and I] in illusion in illusionem, illusio, illudere, illudre 
‍ ‍there is illusion in [noun] appearance, apparition, 
‍ ‍illusion is [verb] a mock, a jest, a jeer 
there is an illusion – for 

time is timid is temporal is temporary is temptation is tendency is turbulent is trouble is tension is tender is 
perhaps to surrender 

[sequence begins] 
I wake to desire 
demand 
determine 
disfunction 
disqualify 
I wake to do, I 
do, I do, I do 
I don’t I am I am I am (crescendo) 

[continue] my I’s: 
wake to wake rise wake means wake to wake die wake and wake die wake and wake wait wake to wake seek wake for wake eternity wake that wake awaits wake where wake my wake love wake is wake my wake light 

[pace yourself] 
there are cracks within the system: don’t you think it’s funny how all the suffering begins with Cs—Capitalism-Carcerality-Colonialism—see, there is an irony in violence, contained in the seas of concepts, see, because there is no language, no name vast enough to see, capture [the] character circulating constant the system conquer is a reverberating mechanism, a cybertechnology, a prophecy, an anchor, a flaw, a biology, a failure, there are cracks grief cracks encircles cracks us, there are cracks within a haunting of those aroundbeforeafterbetweenbeliesbelowbeneath cracks there must be something beyond cracks within existence. it all ends the system [sequence ends] here.