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In Venice, Italy, Indonesian artist Natasha Tontey has resurrected an oft-forgotten female guerrilla fighter from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and moved her \u2013 and her band of girl muscle \u2013 into a four-century-old building that was once used for providing spiritual support to those sentenced to death by hanging.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s goodwill. That message was clear to all who could see Jacopo Palma il Giovane\u2019s Cycle of Purgatory<\/em> (1600) paintings covering the great hall\u2019s ceiling.<\/p>\n 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 \u2013 a CIA-supported rebel movement that waged war against the Indonesian government from 1958 to 1961.<\/p>\n 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 \u201chaunting\u201d the world today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe ceiling, with its stern message, is still intact but is currently partly hidden by a massive platform erected for Tontey\u2019s multi-panel video installation, \u201cThe Phantom Combatants and the Metabolism of Disobedient Organs\u201d, which is opening as a collateral event during the 2026 Venice Biennale<\/span>.<\/div>\nKaramoy was a proud member of the Minahasan people, who are indigenous to Sulawesi<\/span>, and stayed true to the Permesta cause even as others, like her husband, capitulated or became distracted by internal rivalry.<\/div>\n