Closing words Arus Balik – Shifting Currents Symposium Day 2 by Setareh Noorani (Nieuwe Instituut)
Thank you everyone for joining us during this second day of the Arus Balik – Shifting Currents symposium, either in person or online. I once again want to thank the chairs Setiadi Sopandi, Robin Hartanto Honggare, and Ayos Purwoaji, and all the speakers, Amanda Achmadi, Sandro Armanda, Nashin Mahtani and Mohammad Nanda Widyarta, Remco Vermeulen, Yasmin Tri Aryani, and Paoletta Holst.
If I can continue on the thread of shifting currents, and thus also shifting vocabularies, to collectively rethink what objects that impose legacy are, I would want to reiterate the word: responsibility. Responsibility and response-ability, the ability and intuition to respond to the other, whether human or non-human. It implies we collectively engage in worlding and thus wield agency to read our surroundings and with care, shift imposed ways of thinking that do not benefit shared futures.
When collaborating on the initial outlines of this programme, Anita, Melle, Delany, Robin, Rifandi, Gesyada, and I were questioning what types of shared futures – of course we know what we want. But it’s harder to understand what we do not want to perpetuate anymore. Especially if its infrastructures, architectures and designs are deeply entrenched, and invisibilised by ongoing gestures of statecraft and “development”. We immediately understood that convening you would not be about providing answers but about asking more questions and showing each other how we attempt to sense the future from our particular situatedness. It would be about shedding preconceived ideas of how to decolonise these heritages, as the memories to buildings, objects, and fraught sites are too vivid to be simplified in a love and hate relationship. Because: Are we seeing the same things?
To sense pathways forward, either older but still valid tactics of resistance, like the ongoing habits of everyday life, or new hybrids from third and fourth generations, we need to understand the past through shared lenses, tools and practices – mixed methods – A surplus of ideas and resources, through collectivising skills, that underscore accessibility and solidarity. Access to our past, so we know our shared struggles, fears, and hopes. So we recognise control and coercion, the manufacturing of consent to advance neo-colonial influence in post-colonial nations. Our institutional responsibility is to platform dialogue and action for awareness – to reclaim the institution modelled in the West, traditionally a site of epistemic violence and erasure, as a site of epistemic diversity and surplus. Again, it was a true pleasure to welcome you here.
Practically, we have recorded the sessions but they will be made available after consulting the speakers. However, keep an eye out for the photos and the harvests of these days. Today still, we have a workshop around harvesting with Angga Cipta, representing the Cut and Rescue collective, as well as bites and drinks around the Gerobak in the Ruang Tamu.
And as you know, the Arus Balik programme is continuing on until February 2nd with many instalments yet to come, happening between the Netherlands and various spaces in Indonesia, from Jakarta to Solok and Palu. So we hope to see you all soon!