Arus Balik – Shifting CurrentsArus Balik – Shifting Currents

Amanda Achmadi is Associate Professor of Asian Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests focus on architectural historiography, socio-spatial practices and identity politics in colonial and post-colonial Indonesia. Her research has been published in Fabrications, Architecture Beyond Europe Journal, Architectural Theory Review, JSAH and Space and Polity. Her recent publications include the edited volume Architectural Encounters in Asia Pacific Built Traces of Intercolonial Trade, Industry and Labour, 1800s-1950s (Bloomsbury, 2024) and chapters in Reclaiming Colonial Architecture (RIBA Publishing, 2024), Routledge Handbook of Asian Cities (Routledge, 2023), Design and the Vernacular: Interpretations for Contemporary Architectural Practice and Theory (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture (Bloomsbury, 2019). She is a founding member of the Society of Architectural and Urban Historians of Asia (SAUH-Asia).

Sandro Armanda is a PhD student at the Department of Architecture at KU Leuven, Belgium. He works under the supervision of Professor Martino Tattara (KU Leuven) and Dr Sabrina Puddu (University of Cambridge). His PhD project, A 1000 km Long City, explores the enduring legacy of a 1000-km-long colonial road in Java, Indonesia, known as the Great Post Road, and its impact on the relationships between architecture, territory and society. His paper, Rice and Sugar: Tracing the Dutch colonial legacy in Java’s hinterland through the Great Post Road, was recently presented at the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) 2024 conference in Athens.

Yasmin Tri Aryani is a researcher and illustrator with an MA in Design Curating and Writing from the Design Academy Eindhoven. Her research focuses on how traditional architecture has represented national identity in Indonesia since the Dutch colonial era. In 2019, she was selected for the M+/Design Trust research fellowship, where she showcased Indonesian architects’ diverse approaches in embracing local traditions that promote inclusivity. She is also a member of the Collecting Otherwise Working Group, where she observes the everyday situation surrounding A.F. Aalbers' architectural works in Bandung. She translated her observations into a series of tunnel books entitled Stretching the Archives. Continuing her research journey, she initiated Mapping Collective Memories, a collection of stories and memories gathered during walking tours with local communities in Bandung. She recently co-curated an exhibition that activated the archives of Han Awal, one of the first Indonesian architects trained in Germany in the 1960s.

Angeline Basuki managed restoration projects for Konsorsium Kota Tua Jakarta, a heritage organisation that renovates and reopens colonial heritage buildings around Fatahillah Square. Trained as an architect in Jakarta, Indonesia, she also holds a Masters in Heritage Management from the University of Kent, UK, and Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece. Her career has also included conservation. She has been involved in mangrove and peatland restoration initiatives in Kalimantan and Nusa Tenggara.

She was part of the research team for the Heritage Landscape Master Plan in Muaro Jambi and Tana Toraja, commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Public Works and Housing respectively. She has occasionally contributed to architectural research and exhibitions, with a special interest in the 20th century. She lives in Jakarta.

Dr. Hetty Berens is an architectural historian. She obtained her PhD with Dr. Auke van der Woud at the VU University in Amsterdam. As a senior curator at Nieuwe Instituut, she is responsible for acquisitions, research in the collection and for Sonneveld House, the museum house next to Nieuwe Instituut. She also creates exhibitions, such as Histories, Pleisure Parks, Hein de Haan and Architecture and interior: The Desire for Style. She publishes and lectures, and recently wrote a new audio tour for Sonneveld House: The Healthy House. She is a board member of the Research School Art History (OSK) and of Iconic Houses.

Dr Sadiah Boonstra is a historian and curator based in Jakarta. She is the founder and CEO of CultureLab Consultancy Indonesia, a postdoctoral fellow at VU University Amsterdam and honorary senior fellow at Melbourne University. Sadiah combines academic research, curation and public programming to decolonise Indonesia’s history, heritage and arts. She has curated a growing number of exhibitions around the world and has previously worked at the Indonesian Heritage Agency, as Asia Scholar at Melbourne University and Curator Public Programmes at Asia TOPA Melbourne, Senior Manager of Programmes at the National Gallery Singapore, Post-Doctoral Fellow at Royal Holloway University London and the British Museum, and fellow at the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability, Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, New York.

Delany Boutkan is a researcher, editor, and curator with Nieuwe Instituut’s Research team. Since 2019, she has coordinated the annual International Call for Fellows and various research projects, including Collecting Otherwise. Her current research explores language as a design material within design and architecture. Delany's latest publishing initiative, Design Drafts, is a collective investigation into new languages to write design. Her work has been published in Extra Extra Magazine, PIN-UP, Metropolis M, MacGuffin Magazine, PONTON (Z33), Onomatopee Publishing, PS Sandberg, Disegno Journal, and Kunstlicht Journal. She has served on multiple selection committees and curated the ‘5th Floor Talks’ program at Design Academy Eindhoven (2020-2022). Delany has been part of Nieuwe Instituut’s curatorial team for the London Design Biennale 2023 ‘Remapping Collaborations Working Group’. She holds a Master’s degree in Design Curating & Writing from the Design Academy Eindhoven.

Angga Cipta is a visual artist, curator and high school teacher based in Jakarta. His work has ranged from the image of citizen mobility, the turbulence between urban planning and the explosion in the number of vehicles, to the attitude that determines the character of the city, to find a new method of ‘reading the city’. He is currently focusing on the history of urban planning and the development of Jakarta through the ages. His work as a teacher also influences his artistic approach to pedagogical forms such as lectures and workshops. Angga is part of ruangrupa ArtLab and Cut and Rescue, and has participated in various art residency programmes in Singapore, Yogyakarta, Stockholm, Colombo, Arnhem, Semarang, Taipei and Yamaguchi.

In his architectural practice, Hermawan Dasmanto is particularly interested in phenomena that have a lot to do with everyday life. As a speaker at architectural events at home and abroad, he often presents his observations on fundamental things, ranging from user behaviour to basic material properties. He is also interested in what is above and below the ground and the human activities that have shaped space in the past and its possibilities in the future, both of which form a spectrum of interrelationships between nature and culture. His interest in nature and culture has led him to explore the diversity of landscapes and the hustle and bustle of civilisation. His interest in heritage and culture has also helped him in his work in local building heritage conservation. He is also active in the field of education and has initiated several exhibitions and workshops.

Ina Hollmann is a creative producer with a background in design. Since 2014, she has organised numerous exhibitions focusing on design, design research, art, and architecture. She has collaborated with renowned contemporary art and design institutions, independent designers, and other cultural practitioners. Her diverse projects include exhibitions, talks, workshops, public programs, and symposia, all aimed at analysing and amplifying the critical discourse and knowledge production within the current design field.

Paoletta Holst is an artist and architectural historian based in Brussels. Her practice operates at the intersection of different disciplines to investigate the social, historical and political dimensions of architecture and the urban environment. Her work is based on artistic/architectural research and uses different media such as writing, photography, film and installation. Since March 2022, she is a doctoral candidate at Ghent University, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning. Her research focuses on late colonial architecture and domestic cultures in Java, Indonesia, through an artistic mobilisation of the ‘colonial archive’. Recently, she has been working with different people and in different formations on projects related to Indonesia’s colonial history. In 2019 she participated in the 900mdpl biennial in Kaliurang, Indonesia, resulting in the publication What Bungalows Can Tell (Onomatopee, 2021), co-authored by Mira Asriningtyas and Brigita Murti. Together with Paolo Patelli, she developed an archival research project rethinking the ‘logic’ of the colonial Tillema collections, resulting in the workshop programme Menyunting Arsip/Editing the Archive at Gudskul, Jakarta (2022), an exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam (2022) and an artistic film/documentary (forthcoming 2024).

Robin Hartanto Honggare is a historian and curator working at the intersection of architecture, environmental humanities, and commodity histories. His current book project investigates the extensive network of buildings that enabled commodity production in the Dutch East Indies. Honggare received his PhD in Architectural History from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He also holds a BArch from Universitas Indonesia and a master’s degree in Critical and Curatorial Practices in Architecture from Columbia University. His research has been supported by the Graham Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the American-Indonesian Cultural & Educational Foundation, and Nieuwe Instituut, where he is also involved in the Collecting Otherwise working group. He is part of Museum Arsitektur Indonesia’s board of curators.

Gatari Surya Kusuma is a curator and researcher based in Indonesia. She is part of the Bakudapan Food Study Group and the Kunci Study Forum & Collective. Recently. She is working on her curatorial research project on environmental history and community narratives through the intersection of coastal culture and seaweed.

Anita Halim Lim is an architect, researcher, and curator. She studied architecture at Universitas Tarumanagara Jakarta and then received her master’s degree from the MA Heritage Studies programme at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her previous experience includes working as a conservation architect in the Jakarta Old Town Revitalization Project. She was the guest curator for the exhibition Indonesia and the Amsterdam School at Museum het Schip Amsterdam (2022-2023), and writer-in-residence for Makassar Biennale 2023. Anita is also part of the curatorial team of Museum Arsitektur Indonesia. Working in both research and practice, her research interests focus on the intersection between critical heritage and architecture. Currently, she is involved in research, writing, and design for several exhibitions.

Nazif Lopulissa combines personal narratives of ‘migration’ with an organic formal vocabulary that fuses different painterly traditions. Exploring his ‘in-between’ state, he creates freedom within this space and explores how he can embody this liminal feeling. Although he uses techniques and materials drawn from autobiographical contexts, he is equally interested in challenging abstract visual languages to communicate across cultural boundaries. Pushing the boundaries of painting, the artist hides and reveals his (family) history, erasing and creating different futures. He uses bleach to offers glimpses of what was and what can be. In this way he tries to capture movement.

Melle van Maanen is a curator and cultural historian. He is head of exhibitions of Amsterdam School Museum Het Schip and works as a historical researcher at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Amongst others, he curated Indonesia and the Amsterdam School (2022-2023) in Museum Het Schip. Currently, he is working on a related exhibition in Erasmus Huis Jakarta, in which the Chinese-Indonesian architect Liem Bwan Tjie (1891-1966) takes centre stage. At Atelier Volten in Amsterdam-Noord, he is a guest curator of an exhibition about the Liga Nieuw Beelden (1955-1969). This post-war collective of visual artists, architects and designers sought to integrate “art and life” based on the ideals of Bauhaus and De Stijl.

Nashin Mahtani is the Director of Yayasan Peta Bencana [Disaster Map Foundation] in Indonesia and the founding Director of the international Climate Emergency Software Alliance [CESA]. She has led the organisations in building one of the largest open-source software repositories for community-led climate adaptation, currently serving over 400 million people on the frontlines of the climate crisis in the Global South. With a background in architecture, Nashin’s applied and research work focuses on water policy and infrastructure, communication and media philosophies, and collaborative adaptation processes. She is also a principal co-investigator of MERA, a design research investigation into the future of governance structures, foregrounding considerations of watershed care and reciprocity. In 2022, Nashin was a youth delegate to the G20, representing Indonesia and advocating for climate and social justice at the policy level with global leaders. Nashin’s contributions have earned her places on lists such as Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 in 2021 and the Global Citizen Prize: Cisco Youth Leadership Award.

Setareh Noorani is an architect, researcher and curator at Nieuwe Instituut, and an independent artist. Setareh Noorani’s current (curatorial) research at the Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam, NL) focuses on the paradigm-shifting notions of decoloniality, feminisms, queer ecologies, non-institutional and collective representations in contemporary architecture, its heritage and future scenarios. She leads the projects Collecting Otherwise and Modernisms Along the Indian Ocean, co-initiated the Open Call Hidden Histories (with Creative Industries Fund NL), co-curated the exhibition Designing the Netherlands (2023), co-led the project and exhibited space Feminist Design Strategies (2021 – 2023), and has been part of Appropriation as Collective Resistance. Noorani co-edited the book Women in Architecture (nai010, 2023), and has been published in Footprint Journal, and Radical Housing Journal, amongst others. Setareh Noorani received the Museum Talent Prize 2021, awarded by the Dutch Ministry of Culture and Science and the Mondriaan Fund. Currently, she is involved in the selection committee of the yearly Nieuwe Instituut Call for Fellows, with 2023’s co-curated theme titled Tool Shed. Recently, Noorani was part of the curatorial team of the London Design Biënnale 2023, and involved in the selection committee of the 2022 Tilting Axis Fellowship. Noorani holds a master’s degree (MSc) in Architecture (TU Delft, cum laude).

Rifandi Septiawan Nugroho (b.1992) is a curator and researcher who works around the field of architecture, art, and history. In recent years, he has developed multiple formats of artistic research and practices, including exhibitions, publications, community activities, collective studies, and workshops. Most of the works represent his interest in spatial practice, pedagogic imaginaries of archives, and informal structure. He is the subject co-coordinator of Praktik Spasial at Gudskul, Jakarta, and teaching architecture at Universitas Indraprasta PGRI, Jakarta. He worked for Museum Arsitektur Indonesia as chief editor of arsitekturindonesia.org and initiated an open-source archiving platform for spatial studies called uselessspace. Since 2018, with friends, he developed Kelompok Kurator Kampung, a platform of curatorial practice on the citizen community's artistic scene. He holds a bachelor's degree in architecture from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) Surabaya in 2015 and received a Master of Architectural History and Theory at Universitas Indonesia in 2021.

Made Ngurah Amanda Pinatih is an art historian, curator and doctoral candidate. As Design Curator at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, she brings new perspectives to the museum’s extensive design collection. Her experimental approach is driven by an interest in developing new formats for knowledge transfer, while her exhibitions and projects explore the intersections of social, political, (de)colonial, environmental and economic issues. Her research as an external PhD candidate at VU Amsterdam explores the affordances of Indonesian objects in social and political arguments of belonging for diasporic communities with roots in the Indonesian archipelago. Pinatih is also the co-founder of Design Museum Dharavi, the first museum of its kind based in Mumbai’s ‘home-grown neighbourhood’ of Dharavi.

MG Pringgotono was born in Jakarta and studied art at the State University of Jakarta (UNJ). In 2006, he founded a collective of teachers and artists known as Serrum. He worked as a programme manager at Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem and from 2016-2018 he ran the School of Collectivism and Contemporary Art Ecosystems. He is currently the director of Gudskul (Contemporary Art Collective and Ecosystem Studies).

He has worked on numerous public art projects in Indonesia, completed an art residency at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, South Korea, and has exhibited his work in Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and Denmark. Awards include the Special Mention Award in the Indonesia Art Award competition in 2010 and the Tokoh Metro Tempo 2016 award from the Indonesian magazine Tempo. In 2017, he set up a new platform to support DIY practice called Stuffo/labs.

His personal work is mostly inspired by the problems of urban society. Apart from his work as an artist, MG Pringgotono has worked as an art director, exhibition designer and curator for several art exhibitions.

Ayos is a writer and curator of history, architecture, and visual arts. Since 2015, he has worked on several exhibitions and curatorial projects, including Jogja Biennale XVI (2021) and Jakarta International Photography Festival (2022). He is one of the founders of Surabaya Contemporary Heritage Council (SCHC) and a member of Kelompok Kurator Kampung (The Village Curators’ Collective). He teaches cultural studies at Ciputra University, Surabaya.

Christopher Reinhart is a historian specialising in colonialism and colonial discourse in 19th- and 20th-century Indonesia and broader Southeast Asia. He is currently a research consultant at the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, working on a project on Islam and political development in contemporary Indonesia. Previously, he has been involved in various research projects on colonial history with international institutions such as the University of Oxford, Cardiff University, the Royal Library of the Netherlands and DutchCulture. His most recent publication is a book chapter entitled ‘Java and its Cultural Solutions’ in Berlage’s Journey to the Indies.

ruangrupa is a Jakarta-based collective established in 2000. It is a non-profit organization that strives to support the idea of art within urban and cultural context by involving artists and other disciplines such as social sciences, politics, technology, media, etc, to give critical observation and views towards Indonesian urban contemporary issues. ruangrupa also produce collaborative works in the form of art projects such as exhibition, festival, art lab, workshop, research, as well as book, magazine and online-journal publication.

As an artists’ collective, ruangrupa has been involved in many collaborative and exchange projects, including participating in big exhibitions such as Gwangju Biennale (2002 & 2018), Istanbul Biennial (2005), Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Brisbane, 2012), Singapore Biennale (2011), São Paulo Biennial (2014), Aichi Triennale (Nagoya, 2016) and Cosmopolis at Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017). As a collective, ruangrupa curated TRANSaction: Sonsbeek 2016 in Arnhem, NL, and provided artistic directions for documenta fifteen (Kassel, DE, 2022).

From 2015-18, ruangrupa co-developed a cultural platform Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem together with several artists’ collectives in Jakarta, located at Gudang Sarinah warehouse, Pancoran, South Jakarta. It is a cross-disciplinary space that aims to maintain, cultivate and establish an integrated support system for creative talents, diverse communities, and various institutions. It also aspires to be able to make connections and collaborate, to share knowledge and ideas, as well as to encourage critical thinking, creativity, and innovations. The results of these joint collaborations are open for public access—and presented with various exhibitions, festivals, workshops, discussions, film screenings, music concerts, and publications of journals.

In 2018, learning from their experience establishing Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem and together with Serrum and Grafis Huru Hara, ruangrupa co-initiated GUDSKUL: contemporary art collective and ecosystem studies (or Gudskul, in short, pronounced similarly like “good school” in English). It is a public learning space established to practice an expanded understanding of collective values, such as equality, sharing, solidarity, friendship and togetherness.

Gesyada Siregar (b.1994) is a curator, writer and art organizer. She is part of Gudskul Ekosistem, an art educational platform co-founded by Grafis Huru Hara, Serrum and ruangrupa in Jakarta. She is also a researcher in fixer.id, a project that reads and maps the development of art collective practices in Indonesia and initiated the Lumbung Indonesia network. She likes to explore archives, astrology, experiential storytelling, games, and public programming in her practices. Selected exhibitions, publications, and projects include: Temujalar curatorial in National Cultural Week (2023), Stitching Ecosystem at Momentum 12: Together as to Gather curated by Tenthaus, Moss, Norway (2023), Sekolah Temujalar at documenta fifteen, Kassel, Germany, (2020-2022); Collective as School Workbook by Gudskul & Art Gallery of York University (2020), Instrumenta - International Media Arts Festival: Machine/Magic & Sandbox at National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta (2019 - 2018); and Indonesian Visual Art Heritage Book Cap Go Meh - S. Sudjojono for Ministry of Education & Culture Republic of Indonesia (2017).

Setiadi Sopandi is a professional architect, lecturer, and architectural historian. He is the co-founder and the director of Museum Arsitektur Indonesia. He has published Sejarah Arsitektur: Sebuah Pengantar [Architectural History: An Introduction], published by Gramedia, 2013, and Friedrich Silaban (Gramedia, 2017), guest edited Docomomo Journal 57, co-edited and co-produced Gerak Jakarta: Sejarah Ruang-Ruang Hidup (2024), and contributed to several other publications. His research and publication activities revolve around exhibitions produced by arsitekturindonesia.org. He has co-curated and co-directed several architecture exhibitions, including the Indonesian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014, Tropicality: Revisited at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt (2015), Friedrich Silaban, 1912-1984 at the National Gallery of Indonesia (2017), Apaituami (2018), Occupying > modernism (2019), and Dipl.-Ing. Arsitek: German-graduate Indonesian Architects from the 1960s (2022).

Ester van Steekelenburg is one of the founders of Urban Discovery, a creative agency that works at the intersection of heritage, storytelling, and placemaking. Passionate about using art as a tool for engagement, they work with illustrators, animators and writers to present a fresh creative bottom-up approach to explore cultural preservation through the eyes of local communities, empowering them to share their own stories through creative and accessible mediums and gain agency in their urban future. Ester holds an MSc Urban Planning from University of Amsterdam and a PhD in Urban Economics from the University of Hong Kong.

Dicky Takndare is a visual artist from Papua, the easternmost region of Indonesia. He holds a degree in visual arts from the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Yogyakarta, where he is currently based. His artistic practice explores the socio-cultural dynamics, politics and humanism of Papua through painting, drawing, wood carving, installation, and community engagement. In 2018, Dicky co-founded the Udeido Collective which brings together young artists from several different regions of Papua and has become a new art movement in their homeland.

Dr Petra Timmer (PhD MA) is an art historian and independent curator and researcher. She has been co-owner of TiMe Amsterdam, international museum and heritage consultants, since 2007. TiMe advises governments and cultural institutions in the Netherlands and Asia (especially Indonesia) on strategy and policy, museum concepts and development. In 2023, Petra Timmer became a research fellow at Utrecht University on the subject of architect H.P. Berlage (1856-1934) and the Dutch East Indies. His cultural-philosophical travel diary (Mijn Indische Reis, 1923/1931) has been revised from a contemporary postcolonial perspective. As editor-in-chief of the Berlage di Nusantara project, Petra is responsible for the historical research, concept and text.

Remco Vermeulen is an external PhD student at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences. His research focuses on engagement with colonial heritage, especially by young people, in postcolonial Indonesian cities. His teaching focuses on gentrification, colonial and postcolonial urbanism, particularly in Indonesia, and bilateral, cultural relations between Indonesia and the Netherlands. Remco coordinates international cooperation on collection management at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, where he works on knowledge exchange and capacity building programmes within the International Heritage Cooperation programme, which is part of the International Cultural Policy of the Netherlands, as well as for the Colonial Collections Consortium. For his previous position as advisor for cultural cooperation with Indonesia at DutchCulture, in 2023 Remco published a series of articles on ‘The Story of the Erasmus Huis’, the cultural centre of the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta, with two Indonesian historians. The articles, along with short videos based on them, have also been published in Indonesian on Historia.id.

Mohammad Nanda Widyarta is a lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture, Universitas Indonesia. He is currently a PhD student at UNSW Sydney. His doctoral research examines the production of some buildings constructed during the Sukarno era in relation to the political and economic/commercial interests of Indonesian and foreign actors involved in the projects.

Benny Widyo is a Tulungagung-based artist, curator and producer with a background in photography and cultural studies. His collective works have featured in Biennale Jogja (2019), Makassar Biennale (2020), and Pekan Kebudayaan Nasional (2023). He has also worked as the artistic director of Biennale Jatim IX (2021). In late 2019, Benny initiated Gulung Tukar, a multidisciplinary cultural arts collective in Tulungagung that focuses on promoting inclusivity within the local arts ecosystem. He and his collective have collaborated with various local, national, and international cultural organisations such as the Prince Claus Fund, the British Council and the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture. In March 2024, Benny was a speaker at Meeting Point 2024: Perspectives from the Grassroots in Hanoi, Vietnam. Benny focuses on social issues, especially equality and accessibility. He believes that the distribution of access and knowledge is important in building inclusivity. His artistic practice includes organising communities and managing archives and sites to evolve with future possibilities.

Najiba Yasmin is a programme maker, facilitator, illustrator and community organiser. Born and raised in Northeast India, she has recently been based in the Netherlands, working in and around cultural institutions. She currently heads the International Visitors Programme at the Nieuwe Instituut, where she facilitates the exchange of knowledge, dialogue and networks of the Dutch creative and design field abroad. Her cultural work operates from the lens of social justice with a specific focus on queer-feminist frameworks, towards equitable collaboration and alternative, sustained models of community engagement.