Nieuwe Instituut
Nieuwe Instituut

Sonneveld House

Arus Balik – Shifting Currents

23 September 2024 - 1 February 2025

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How can we rearticulate design legacies between Indonesia and the Netherlands and investigate future pathways? Join Nieuwe Instituut, Museum Het Schip and Gudskul this September for the Arus Balik – Shifting Currents programme. Supported by DutchCulture, the Prince Claus Fund, the Marinus Plantema Foundation, Museum Arsitektur Indonesia, Berlage di Nusantara and others, this initiative aims to bring together architecture and design networks that link the regions and their diasporas, recognising architecture and design as material witnesses to colonial histories and pathways to possible shared futures.

A.F. Aalbers, Hotel Savoy Homann located on the Groote Postweg (Jl. Asia Afrika 112) in Bandung. View from dining room to garden, 1937-1939. Collection Nieuwe Instituut, archive AALB ph75-a

Titled Arus Balik – Shifting Currents, the programme unfolds through sessions in the GUD Instituut Living Room hosted by Gudskul and local partners in the Netherlands and Indonesia, keynote lectures and a symposium at the Nieuwe Instituut, and visitor programmes in the Netherlands.

It offers a platform for talks, artistic interventions and social activities, bringing together artists, designers, curators, researchers and architects whose work investigates colonial architectural legacies using design methods to address matters of diasporisation, intertwined histories, and cultural hybridity. Careful consideration, intentional dialogue and action are required to understand contemporary architectural and design practices that navigate histories of inequality and violence. How can we find the vocabulary, tools and artistic languages to simultaneously acknowledge these pasts and express the futures that we wish to share?

Mapping Collective Memories, Ongoing research project since 2023. Drawing by Yasmin Tri Aryani.

Through Arus Balik – Shifting Currents, we seek to platform the important role of architects and designers in shifting the currents between the past and the present, fostering potential collaborative efforts while articulating colonial design legacies and envisioning possible pathways for shared design worlds and relationships.

Events

lumbung.space Harvests

Throughout the Arus Balik – Shifting Currents programme, harvests are collected as a digital trail of the ideas, experiences and dialogues that emerge during the events, workshops or in the GUD Instituut Living Room.

Harvests are published on lumbung.space, an online platform that forms a vibrant archive and a digital living room.

You can contribute your own harvest in five easy steps, via this special Arus Balik Harvest form.

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This project was made possible thanks to:

Nieuwsbrief

Ontvang als eerste uitnodigingen voor onze events en blijf op de hoogte van komende tentoonstellingen.