Gathering #5: Post/De/ColonialGathering #5: Post/De/Colonial

After the year's iteration was introduced by Setareh Noorani, we welcomed two contributions by working group members. Writer and artist Hannah Dawn Henderson, although not physically present, presented the written piece Uttering Visibility, that explores the semantics, contextualisation, and the allowance for doubt, the specific language, meta-data and archival apparatus surrounding colonial subjects in the Eibink archive. Researcher and illustrator Yasmin Tri Aryani mapped out the practices of everyday life surrounding the colonial buildings in Bandung, Indonesia, more specifically the histories surrounding De Driekleur, designed by Albert Aalbers in 1938 and recently renovated by local Indonesian architects. Joining the discussion and as a respondent for the evening, we welcomed writer and researcher Sumaya Kassim, elaborating on decolonial structures in institutions. What can change look like within an institution?

During its second iteration, in 2022, Collecting Otherwise will focus itself on seven case studies with intimate links to an architecture and design practice in the colonial 'abroad' from about 690 architecture archives held by Het Nieuwe Instituut -- considering the current and future potentials of decolonial agency within the diasporic condition, decentralising the locus of design 'culture', narrating an empowered self from reclaiming (im)material heritage and design languages surrounding this heritage.

Eurocentric institutions, architectural structures, and urban ensembles all served to uphold and globalise extractive state apparatuses and their parallel inter-state relations. Operating from an institution with such entanglements, we must heed the call to listen with intent to these histories, their ongoing legacies, and those who can voice these embodied and lived heritages. This is where decolonization starts for Collecting Otherwise, and has a possibility to coagulate into the postcolonial. Themes that the project will focus on during the year include: reading architectural labour in the colonial abroad and global south, queering and intersectional feminisms as lens, landscapes of colonial production, Sonneveld House and its relation to the tobacco plantations in Paducah, Kentucky (USA), and decolonial agents and agencies. Re-searching photographs and documents, blueprints and drawings, is also attuning oneself to the socio-economic circumstances of specific contexts. We have to listen to these silenced images and perceive them connecting to the material conditions of the land, connecting to the materiality of the buildings we thus far understood as chiefly stacked bricks, poured concrete, and woven textiles. We have to remove ourselves from the accepted idea that there was no rebellion, no resistance, no protesting against /"the structural adjustments of an imported [...] regime/".

The globalised reality of ever-accelerating exchange and localised vernacular serve as a political backdrop to the architecture enforced as mediation of power and prowess. We should reverse the lens, and ask: what did the past citizens of former Dutch colonial territories think of these interventions, and how are they currently seen? What aspects of 'design' have been exchanged in this entangled legacy? How can we make sure that these portions of archives and research (often written in Dutch) are made available to consult, use, and reclaim by the respective communities?

As we opened the evening to our guest speakers, Delany Boutkan took the digital stage on behalf of Hannah Dawn Henderson, artist, writer and Working Group member. Hannah shared a written piece that was enjoyed alongside screenshots of the collection's search portal, giving a glimpse into the different visibilities and gazes constructed in and around the archival apparatus. In the beginning, Hannah dives into how the first digital encounters with archive unfolded:

/"My first encounter with the archive was as this mobile, virtual site -- framed within my laptop's screen. Its data would later sprawl across my day-to-day conversations, over Skype and Facetime, extending across other virtual terrains and landing in the thoughts of friends and colleagues. This circumstance also had implications on how I initially engaged with the archive's imagery. The case study dossiers that I found myself drawn to were either not yet digitised in their entirety, or had otherwise not been made publicly viewable yet./"

The text continues and poses questions rooted in Adolf Eibink's archive, that includes photographs of indigenous people in the former Dutch East Indies, often de-contextualised:

/"How do we make visible and communicate doubt, conflicts of ethics, the absence of neutrality, question marks that only bear yet further question marks? How do we show these aspects of the archive's infrastructure -- these ruptures and sites of tension that have always been present within it -- whilst simultaneously reflecting on the potential violence entailed in visiblising the archive's contents? The work of Collecting Otherwise can be perhaps understood as a response to this very kind of urgent enquiry. By operating as a vessel of polyphonic, multifaceted knowledge, the working group seeks to translate doubts and questions into not so much clear-cut deliverables and rapid answers, but rather conversations, invitations, asterisks and annotations, footnoting the archive's future potential./"

After the inspiring reading, we had the pleasure to welcome Yasmin Tri Aryani, researcher, illustrator and Working Group member. Based in Indonesia, Yasmin brings a unique and situated perspective on Albert Aalbers's archive and legacy in Bandung -- looking into the buildings' present uses, questioning the post-colonial traces left in contemporary Indonesian life and how they shape collective identities. This presentation was also an introduction moment, as Yasmin aims to develop this project further within Collecting Otherwise.

Bandung is an important city within the Dutch colonial legacy and home to many buildings that have been conserved and made part of the local heritage and the city's identity -- in fact, Yasmin points out how her first conversations with the community around what they associate with the city also includes its colonial architecture -- in which, at the centre of Yasmin's research and of northern Bandung, is /"De Driekleur/".

Yasmin's main research questions around this modernist colonial building decentralise and reclaim heritage, as it shifts the focus from building itself and zooms into the conditions it has been kept and the lives that exist around it, the contemporary appropriations of heritage:

/"Why do they think De Driekleur is important to be conserved? Which part of this Art Deco building adapts to the tropical climate? How do the older generations that experienced the colonial time feel about the conservation attempt? And how do people interact with these colonial legacies today?/"

As we are presented with animations, sounds and videos from the northern streets of Bandung, we are brought to its moving, active, living urban life, showing taxis and food delivery couriers that stay around the building, sitting on the benched. The street where De Driekleur is located is a big main road, home to side-walk food street vendors -- this activity is not actually /"allowed/" as it was deemed not appropriate for this part of town. We realised that segregation in Bandung is alive, driven by past (Dutch) colonial architecture and planning. The north side, where we stand now, is marked by Parisian-style lamp posts, modern buildings, luxury shops, populated by a European and Chinese population. The indigenous population is located on the south of Bandung, never accessing these commodities. For whose gaze are we decorating the streets like this? And how can a street vendor, or otherwise 'informal' presences, signify an act of decolonial resistance?

In design choices -- as we compare modernist Aalbers with Maclaine Pont, who appropriated indigenous architecture in his design -- an in conservation policies, the way the local politicians of Bandung have been gatekeepers of a shared, public heritage raise even more questions about the tensions in reclaiming and keeping, and how different generations have approached colonial traumas and postcolonial futures differently. With certain colonial paradigms still at play, who gets to feel welcome, and which bureaucratic structures are still in place? Yasmin will continue her research around Bandung within the Collecting Otherwise working group, collecting oral histories, testimonies and visual impressions.

We thank Yasmin as we introduce our evening's respondent, Sumaya Kassim -- writer, editor and curator. Through both fiction and essay, Sumaya thinks through and on colonial forms and narratives, such as museums, as is best known for the essay The museum will not be decolonised (Media Diversified, 2017). In a shared conversation, moderators and Collecting Otherwise team members Setareh Noorani and Carolina Valente Pinto gather with Yasmin and Sumaya to think through the questions raised, linking the presentations and the goals for this year's iteration: recognising colonial legacies today, both in the street and in institutions, what does change look like, and how do we enact it?

Firstly, Sumaya reflects on how Yasmin's research highlights the way design and architecture consolidate colonial exchanges and powers, even seen in the way they often house current day governments. In this way, navigating in the post/de/colonial is a difficult if not impossible task, hence the importance of Collecting Otherwise's both /"granular/" and detailed-oriented approach, focusing on the collection's case studies to speak of wider questions. The 'granular' also acts as a vehicle to start imagining postcolonial futures, its possibility being simultaneously near and far. Despite our blind spots, our failures are productive, and amidst them we must continue making way for more questions. Modernity, design, architecture and identity are all at stake when living through decoloniality, as the structures uphold not only power but a seeming nostalgia of progress. So what is the next in the granular, what spaces can be inhabited in this approach, particularly when speaking of times and states of emergency? Who are the survivors, the street vendors in the archive? Through a caring, slow approach remembering and speaking the names of communities becomes central, as underlined in Hannah Dawn Henderson's text where the codified existence of those in the archive can be re-traced and re-told, shifting the gaze for whom these stories are constructed.

This also leads to not only the case studies chosen, but the methods we work through to research post/de/colonial urbanity. Curator at Het Nieuwe Instituut and Working Group member Hetty Berens inquires on Yasmin's research methodology, while complementing Yasmin's new and original approach to archival research into familiar case studies. Yasmin explains how the street vendors, or peddlers, offer important metaphors to negotiate colonial architecture's existence, in mapping and zooming in otherwise. In the chat, Robin Hartanto comments on this compelling metaphor, pointing out /"whereas collecting otherwise /"asks fundamental questions about the value and significance of the documents contained in the collection,/" you seem to approach the buildings themselves as living archives redefined by new events, encounters, exchanges, practices while also allowing yourself to get lost, diverting into other things that interest you./"

Indeed, one may ask communities what should be done with colonial buildings, while they also squat, use them as shelter -- Sumaya makes connections between this discussion and the global housing crisis, and how squatting (and peddling) is a form of protest.

Amidst buildings and archives as oppressive architectures, how do we remember? What do we turn into monuments? In the chat, Catherine Koekoek relates to her experience living in Brighton and where the orientalist palace is still a central social point and object of pride in the city. Sumaya, UK based, underlines the British relationship with their colonial past and the politics of its remembrance -- mostly populated by a nostalgic, melancholic collective identity. In all the different types of preserving and remembering, infrastructures are starting points for stories, we now can construct other utopias for ourselves, claim other intersections.

After an incredibly inspiring exchange, we close the evening and thank everyone for their presence and participation, while looking forward to what this new iteration will bring. This gathering comes to an end with Sumaya Kassim's video-essay, The Museum Will Not Be Decolonised:

/"Decolonising is deeper than just being represented. When projects and institutions proclaim a commitment to 'diversity', 'inclusion' or 'decoloniality' we need to attend to these claims with a critical eye. Decoloniality is a complex set of ideas - it requires complex processes, space, money, and time, otherwise it runs the risk of becoming another buzzword, like 'diversity'. As interest in decolonial thought grows, we must beware of museums' and other institutions' propensity to collect and exhibit because there is a danger (some may argue an inevitability) that the museum will exhibit decoloniality in much the same way they display/ed black and brown bodies as part of Empire's /"collection/"/".