Tangled Up in Blue follows up-and-coming international artist Ari Bayuaji as he creates artwork made from found ocean plastics. Ari is also a community activist working to awaken the people in his network of art collaborators, and chosen family and neighbors, to the magnitude of the trash problem around them. When Ari is told by a temple mystic that he comes from a line of healers and he applies that idea to his daily work, embracing the culture of Balinese mysticism to align with his purpose as an artist and a healer. 

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As the documentary unfolds, the audience meets Ari’s close collaborators; his primary weaver BuDesak joins him in collecting plastic waste in the Sanur mangrove forests, Iwid, a former masseuse, and his wife Az’rah, a caterer, who lost their livelihoods during the pandemic but have since become part of Ari’s creative circle, drawing on skills they learned growing up. They are joined by Dika, who helps gather plastics in the mangroves and works at a popular local outdoor coffee shop and Nyoman Sari, BuDesak closest friend who also runs the nearby convenience store while helping Ari; and the Denpasar royal family members who sold Ari the land for his planned weaving school. Together, they form his ‘chosen family’.
 
Ari begins his days with meditation then walks to his studio located on the main street of Sanur. The weaving loom BuDesak works on sits outside the entrance of his studio, hidden by trees and greenery. Along the main street of Sanur where Ari’s studio is located are restaurants, hotels and shops, a hub of commercial activity in this Denpasar seaside town. Everywhere he walks enroute to his studio and back home at night, people know him. They give him space and treat him with a reverence not usually afforded someone walking on foot or sometimes carrying discarded plastic. 

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Ari is deeply drawn to the folklore of Sanur, weaving its stories into his art. Sanur is long known as a haunted landscape and a center of black magic; its beaches and mangroves are believed to be home to Leyaks (witches) said to roam the shoreline at night. While most people avoid the beach after dark, Ari returns to it, meditating in the darkness.

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When not in Sanur, Ari resides in Montreal, Canada. Splitting his time between Indonesia and Canada, Ari’s artwork has been making an impact with curators and collectors internationally. The time he spends there is uniquely different than Sanur. In Montreal, he floats in a world separated from his collaborators but surrounded by the objects used in his artworks. Ari’s studio in Montreal is a larger space cluttered with materials compared to his rough-hewn, mostly open-air studio in Sanur. The filming is mainly set in Sanur, but by seeing both we get a glimpse of the contrasts in Ari’s life. 

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The persistence of ocean plastics is a huge problem worldwide and it is particularly acute along the coast of Indonesia, where the growth of tourism has collided with the government’s neglect of garbage disposal. Pointing fingers at over tourism has long been a response but the problem runs deeper than this. When the Denpasar city fabric market collapsed into the city’s largest river due to flooding caused by garbage and single-use plastics just two months before filming began, it was clear that speaking up was necessary for Ari. Living with plastic has become unavoidable but as Ari tells us, those with a voice need to speak out. And what matters next is how people respond.