Who Stole the Sky is an exhibition by Balinese artist Citra Sasmita. She has transformed the Kunsthall’s galleries into a space for reflection and ritual. The works explore the relationships between body, mind and spirit. Sasmita highlights our deep connection to nature and to people who came before us. She asks how art can help us think about our place in a larger story – across generations, cultures, and belief systems.
The main themes in Sasmita’s exhibition include:
The relationship between humans and nature
The role of women in creation and spirituality
Creativity as an act of connection
This is a brief introduction to the exhibition. If you would like to read more, you can pick up the full exhibition text at the reception desk.
Who Stole the Sky bridges Balinese and Norse belief systems. Both cultures believe the world has many layers, and Sasmita’s artworks suggest that different realms – the visible and the invisible – can exist at the same time. The artist shows how spiritual ideas can travel across cultures and times.
Inspired by ritual, the exhibition has been designed as one complete experience. You are invited to move slowly and notice your breath, your body, and even the scent in the air. .
In Gallery 4, embroidered textile works are inspired by animal skins used in Balinese ritual sacrifice. These ceremonies bring people together to share food and mark important moments. Each fabric ‘skin’ suggests that the surface of the body is a place of change and transformation.
In Gallery 5, braided hair and bowls of ground spices hang from the ceiling. For the artist, the use of hair represents memory, instinct, and knowledge passed down from elders and ancestors, especially women. You are invited to sit and reflect on your connection to nature and those who came before you.
In the main gallery, Sasmita reimagines traditional Kamasan scroll paintings by placing women at the centre of the stories. The depicted bodies show creation, destruction, and renewal. Nature appears as part of the human body, not separate from it.
In this exhibition, Sasmita reminds us that art is part of being human – a shared experience. Who Stole the Sky invites us to reconnect to nature, with tradition, and each other.
Bio
Sasmita is a self-taught artist with a background in physics, illustration, and poetry. She has trained with traditional Kamasan painters and priestesses and is one of only two women globally to have been taught this technique, which has historically been passed down through male lineages. Her practice engages with ancient Balinese myths, rituals, and iconography while reinserting female narratives into histories from which they have long been excluded. Through this reclamation, Sasmita also confronts the enduring effects of colonialism on land, education and belief systems, and artistic production, reimagining tradition not as a static inheritance, but as an evolving and critical force for transformation.
Her work has been shown in several notable biennales and triennales such as ALOHA NŌ, Hawai’i Triennial (Hawai’i, 2025), to carry, Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirates, 2025); Precarious Joys, Toronto Biennial of Art (Canada, 2024); After Rain, Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale (Saudi Arabia, 2024); Ten Thousand Suns, 24th Biennale of Sydney (Australia, 2024); Choreographies of the Impossible, 35th São Paulo Biennale (Brazil, 2023); The Open World, 3rd Thailand Biennale, Mae Fah Luang Art and Cultural Park, Chiang Rai (Thailand, 2023); Garden of Ten Seasons, Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (Germany, 2022); Kathmandu Triennale (Nepal, 2021-2022); ARTJOG MMXXII, Time To Wonder, Jogja National Museum, Yogyakarta (Indonesia, 2021); and the Biennale Yogyakarta (Indonesia, 2019). Recent solo exhibitions include Into Eternal Land, Barbican The Curve, (London, 2025); Atlas of Curiosity, Yeo Workshop (Singapore, 2023); Ode To The Sun, Yeo Workshop (Singapore, 2020); and Tales of Nowhere, Museum MACAN, Jakarta (Indonesia, 2020).
The exhibition is curated by Kristina Ketola Bore and Heather Jones.
The exhibition is generously supported by Fritt Ord.
Kunsthall Stavanger would like to thank Yeo Workshop.