A Collaboration Between Ronald Akili and Futura2000
In 2009, Ronald Akili co-founded a hospitality company named Potato Head. From its first project, a restaurant and bar in Jakarta, the company grew as a lifestyle brand, blending food, art, and design with hospitality, music, and culture. Potato Head has since expanded to more than ten nature- and design-forward culinary, retail, and hotel destinations in locations like Singapore and Hong Kong. Rooted in an ethos of combining simplicity with sustainability, each project pushes the boundaries of responsible design to focus on reducing, reusing, and recycling materials on-site.
Portrait of Ronald Akili, courtesy of Potato Head.
Three years ago, the brand opened Potato Head Beach Club in Seminyak, Bali, designed by the Rem Koolhaas–led firm OMA. Nearly a decade in the making, the beachfront property is immersed in its own creative village named Desa Potato Head, featuring suites, indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, a pool, and culinary outlets that focus on wellness, cultural excursions, inventive food and beverage programs, and community programming. In addition to providing sustainability workshops, tours, and zero-waste kits to guests, the property created a ban on single-use plastics, works with sustainable producers, and creatively reimagines its discarded materials to create items like furniture, candles, and in-room amenities. The goal is to educate and inspire guests beyond their stay.
Recently, Potato Head Beach Club commissioned a sculpture from the artist Futura2000 named Pointman – River Warrior, inspired by the property’s approach to pollution and made of recycled materials. A second iteration also appears in Singapore at the National Design Centre.
Whitewall spoke with Akili and Futura about collaborating to bring this piece to life, and how the property aims to become a zero-waste destination.
Desa Potato Head Bali, courtesy of Potato Head.
WHITEWALL: In Bali, where issues exist in Potato Head Beach Club’s backyard, how are you approaching hospitality with sustainability at its forefront?
RONALD AKILI: On our sustainability journey, there are three things we want to do. First, we are on a journey to zero waste to landfill in all our operations. Because there is no real waste management system on the island, most of the waste in Bali ends up in the ocean or in landfill. When we did an audit, we found out that 50 percent of our waste was going to landfill. Since then, we have created targets and in-house waste management systems that have allowed us to reduce our waste to landfills from 50 percent to less than 5 percent, even though we serve around two thousand people daily.
The second thing is creating awareness. We’re running sustainability workshops, talks, and curating art, which we hope sparks conversations about sustainability. In providing visitors with amazing experiences and products, which simply happen to be sustainable, we hope to show that being “green” doesn’t mean compromising on quality. We aim to inspire change in the way people think about travel as a whole and contribute to regenerative tourism. We want to encourage travelers’ mindset of receiving and giving, instead of just taking and consuming.
Lastly, using our creative village, we are building a platform where we can invite artists, designers, activists, chefs, and grassroots communities to share their voice and their ideas. Together, we believe we can share awareness and create solutions that can regenerate the island. From local change-makers to global names—such as Sungai Watch, Youthtopia, and Liina Klauss, as well as OMA, Max Lamb, TooGood, Kengo Kuma, and Andra Matin—we’re building a movement that hopes to inspire our community and to redefine waste creatively.
“We aim to inspire change in the way people think about travel.” —Ronald Akili
WW: What kind of sustainable and philanthropic programming can guests take part in while visiting?
RA: We just launched our Follow the Waste Tour, which takes guests back of house at Potato Head so they can see our waste management initiatives firsthand and learn more about sustainability. The tour ends with a hands-on workshop, so guests can take the creative ways that we manage waste and bring it to their home cities. Guests can also participate in our community volunteering project. Every Thursday and Sunday, we take produce harvested from our Sweet Potato Farm to make servings of nasi bungkus to share with those in need. It’s a way that they can do good on the island while learning more about Indonesian food.
WW: Most recently, the property collaborated with FUTURA2000 on a sculpture for the property. Why was he someone you wanted to collaborate with?
RA: As an icon of street culture, Futura is someone we’ve wanted to work with for a long time. In New York, the view from his studio of the Statue of Liberty is obscured by vessels transporting trash and free-floating river garbage. Our shared concern of the pollution crisis faced by both rivers and tributaries in New York City and Southeast Asia was an opportunity to create something beautiful together, which could work as social commentary and spark conversations.
WW: The sculpture was made of collected waste, with the help of two community organizations focused on pollution—Sungai Watch and Yayasan Kaki Kita. Why was this collaborative effort important?
RA: We’ve been inspired by Sungai Watch’s dedication to cleaning up every day and finding solutions. We have been working on several community projects with them and other local waste-focused enterprises. Our role at Potato Head is more about bringing these groups together and adding a creative twist to things happening on the island. Sungai Watch were able to collect 14,300 black and white grocery bags for Pointman in Singapore, and Yayasan Kakikita collected 888 kilograms of plastic—everything from motor oil bottles to discarded water gallon lids for Pointman in Bali. Sustainability in Bali would not be possible without collaborations between changemakers, as we all share the same goal.
Portrait of Futura2000, courtesy of Potato Head.
“We hope to inspire others to follow our lead.” —Futura2000
WW: Futura, what was the starting point for Pointman – River Warrior?
FUTURA2000: In the summer of 2019, while visiting the property, I was exposed to the production of these fabricated pieces in the forms of desks, tables, and other pieces entirely created from recycled waste from the local rivers of Bali. The possibilities were born on that visit, and post-pandemic, we’re so happy to finally reveal and debut the artwork. We hope to inspire others to follow our lead and think of ways to contribute to the cause.
WW: What was it like creating this piece with repurposed materials, rather than the materials and techniques you’re accustomed to working with back home?
F: As a young artist with limited resources, it was always found objects, or trash, that I would scavenge to create unique pieces—from artists I had never known. Vintage frames with decorative edges, broken windows, refrigerator doors, and various pieces of metal . . . Decades later, in this current future, we are searching for those manufacturers who may help us in the realm of sustainability and turning nothing into something. The work of Potato Head and others around the planet are giving artists excellent road maps in what’s possible beyond the obvious efforts to recycle waste properly.
WW: This sculpture’s silhouette has been seen in your work for decades. How did it originate?
F: Pointman originated many years ago in the early eighties, as I was developing my abstraction in painting. I felt like I needed a character to accompany that. My love of science fiction, and Alien in the late seventies. When I first saw that film, those figures inspired me immensely. For me, it was about being a “point man,” in a sense of being in front of the group and being in advance of the oncoming group, which I’ve always been, and I hope I continue to be.
Installation view, “Pointman – River Warrior” by Futura2000, courtesy of Potato Head.
