International Visitors Programme
The International Visitors Programme of the Nieuwe Instituut, in collaboration with Arus Balik – Shifting Currents, DutchCulture and the Prince Claus Fund, invited nine visitors from Indonesia to the Netherlands at the end of September to participate in the Arus Balik programme. The aim of this visit was to highlight past actions and weave them into new areas of common interest.
The visit coincided with the launch of Arus Balik in Rotterdam in September 2024. During the multi-day visit, the visitors had the opportunity to interact with a wide range of creative professionals in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague. They visited the exhibitions Underdeveloped at Garage Rotterdam, Love, Labour, Liberate at Gemaal op Zuid and Min Oh: Conversation Dance at Galerie de Appel and had in-depth discussions with curators about horizontal curatorial processes and alternative methods of engagement.
The group also visited the National Archives to exchange sources of research material, looking in particular at cartographic material, architectural drawings of colonial administrative buildings and administrative documents in the archive collection. The visitors also had guided tours of the Museum Het Schip in Amsterdam and Museum Maluku in The Hague, exploring key moments in Indonesian and Moluccan history in relation to the Netherlands through elements of architecture, archiving and storytelling.
The visitors contributed to the opening week by facilitating several workshops in the Living Room of the GUD Institute and presenting their research at the Arus Balik – Shifting Currents Symposium, which provided formal and informal moments of exchange of knowledge and skills exchange with the Dutch audience.
The visiting guests were: Yasmin Tri Aryani (researcher, illustrator, Bandung); Dicky Takndare (visual artist, Papua); Nashin Mahtani (architect, researcher, Jakarta); Setiadi Sopandi (architect, Jakarta); Christopher Reinhart (researcher of Indonesian colonial history, Jakarta); Hermawan Dasmanto (architect, co-founder of ARA Studio, Surabaya); Ayos Purwoaji (writer and curator, Surabaya); Benny Widyo (photographer, designer and curator, Tulungagung & Yogyakarta); and Gatari Surya Kusama (researcher and curator, Yogyakarta.