Dealing in Distance is a mini festival bringing together Southeast Asian artists and artists from the Southeast Asian diaspora to re-read and rearticulate practices of diaspora and migration—particularly in relation to Germany—through artistic research and intercultural exchange. Initiated by four Goethe-Instituts in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi) and conceived as a platform for research-based practice, the programme understands knowledge as an ongoing process rather than a fixed conclusion, moving between local and global contexts.
Building on these aims, the programme is conceptually framed by the programme curator, RED Nguyễn Hải Yến, who draws on the idea that identity does not grow from a single origin, but from multiple connections. Shaped by the thinking of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, this approach is articulated through the image of the rhizome, which spreads horizontally to form networks instead of singular roots. In dialogue with Édouard Glissant’s notion of relational identity, diaspora is understood as a condition shaped by movement, encounter, and overlapping multicultural, postcolonial, and transnational histories.
Aligned with Goethe-Institut’s commitment to dialogue and mobility, the festival travels to Bali for its third iteration, realised in collaboration with two local curators, Wayan Sumahardika and Savitri Sastrawan. The programme unfolds through exhibitions, performances, workshops, talks, and walking tours, presenting encounters—often uneven and unresolved—between contemporary Southeast Asian diasporic, Indonesian, and Balinese artists.
Bali provides a critical lens to reflect on belonging beyond fixed definitions, shaped by plural worldviews, histories of migration and tourism, and ongoing negotiations between tradition and contemporary experience. Within this context, Bali is an active site where historical layers and contemporary negotiations intersect, and thus, this edition’s concept “KAMU DARI MANA? (WHERE ARE YOU FROM?)” finds clear resonance.
Rather than seeking an “authentic” Balinese identity, Dealing in Distance invites artists and audiences to read Bali as an unfinished process—an assemblage in which diaspora, history, and mobility intertwine without promises of stability. Across experiences of loss, longing, resistance, and resilience, “home” never appears as a final destination, but as something continuously imagined, dismantled, and renegotiated through openness and uncertainty.
Dealing in Distance “KAMU DARI MANA? (WHERE ARE YOU FROM?)” featuring artistic contributions from:
Alvin Collantes | Amal Purnama | Bilawa Ade Respati | Bumi Bajra | [cap naga] | Don Rare Nadiana x Wulan Dewi Saraswati | Ferdiansyah Tajib | Gatari Surya Kusuma | Gede Yogi Sukawiadnyana x Ni Komang Ayu Anantha Putri x Manik Sukadana | Hà Thúy Hằng | Hiền Hoàng | Hoo Fan Chon | I Ngurah Suryawan | I Putu Oka Surya Pratama | Jules Leaño | Made Masak | Melati Suryodarmo | Nelden Djakababa Gericke x Putri Minangsari | Noutnapha Soydala | Nindya Nareswari | Nuturang | Phạm Minh Đức | Prinka Saraswati | Sarnt Utamachote, Plum, Gula Malacca | Vita Wulansari | Wayan Gde Yudane x Putu Septa | Woven Kolektif | Zelin Seah
