Character design studio Show The Monster is holding an installation exhibition in collaboration with Jakarta-based creative consultant The 1984. The installation features Trio Pikabo, three cute characters created by Evan Aditya based on Indonesian ghosts. 

Evan decided to create such characters in order to overcome his fears of ghosts, while at the same time hoping that people could see ghosts in a new perspective, given that the Trio Pikabo characters have feelings just like humans. 

“I created Trio Pikabo as I want to give people a new perspective, that visually ghosts don't always look scary - they can also be packaged into cute characters with fun nuances with different backgrounds, [for instance] that ghosts actually want to be friends with humans,” Evan explained.

Trio Pikabo consists of Apoci, Mba Nana and Tui Tui. Not only drawing inspiration from Indonesian ghosts, the characters are also based on native plants. The inspiration for  Mba Nana is bananas, while Tui Tui and Apoci are based on the kalpataru and cambodia, respectively. This explains the Trio Pi-Ka-Bo’s name which is the abbreviation of pisang (banana), kalpataru and kamboja (cambodia). 

Through the installation exhibition, which is  filled with planes and handmade paper flowers, Trio Pikabo and The 1984 invite everyone to immerse in and reminisce about their childhood. 

"From the premise [of reminiscing about one's childhood], we then processed and conceptualised it into one story [which is] an installation where our childhood memories are directly presented here, such as paper airplanes that we used to make and play with often when we were children, as well as the flowery meadows,” said The 1984 spokesperson Taja Sukarya.

“These things are considered as the visual language that Trio Pikabo wants to convey to the audience - they want to be friends and how the world will become  more fun if we can be friends with each other and accept the differences,” Taja added.
Other than to see the installation, visitors can also enjoy Trio Pikabo’s music through an AR filter from Trio Pikabo’s jukebox installation, as well as take photos with Trio Pikabo statue using Instagram filters to see their various disguises in the Trio Pikabo Incognito Trio installation. Visitors could also write greeting letters and friend invitations through the Trio Pikabo Pen Pal installation and then send those letters via the mailbox that connects our world with Trio Pikabo’s.