Art and cultural management fellowship for Indonesian practitioners: Alifah Melisa, Maria Pankratia, Novan Effendy
Following the open call in 2021, several art managers in Indonesia have been chosen for the fellowship. They will have several online exchanges during the fellowship with the participants from Thailand.
Alifah Melisa (Jakarta)
joined Milisifilem Collective as the coordinator in 2018. Milisifilm was initiated by Forum Lenteng, a non-profit organization focusing on the development of social and cultural studies through visual experiments. During her time at Milisifilem, she has managed several group and solo exhibitions. She is currently focusing on studying Chinese cinema. As an artist, she has created works using Chinese ink, watercolor and gouache and was involved in a sound performance.
As part of Melisa's fellowship, Anggraeni Widhiasih and Cecil Mariani were invited to continue the research study "New Paranormal: Apparitions," which was presented at the Jakarta Biennale 2021. This study aims to investigate the issues that art workers face, in particular in the art and culture management sector. Managerial work or practice is typically considered unrelated to artistic endeavor. Meanwhile, artistic practice should not be restricted to the creation of objects but also include the creation of events, circumstances, and settings, among other things. 96 out of 106 respondents in the study "New Paranormal: Apparitions" stated that organizing the economics of cultural arts workers is a critical concern. From April to June 2022, we will urge artists and cultural workers to formulate a possible means of an organized economy for the managers in the format of FGDs and workshops or classes.
Maria Pankratia (East Nusa Tenggara)
is the program coordinator at Petra Book Club Foundation (Ruteng, Flores) and program manager for the Flores Writers Festival. She has been active in the book community in East Nusa Tenggara since 2014. Her writings have appeared in
Bali Post,
Pos Kupang,
Santarang Journal, and
Bale Bengong among other publications. Maria is currently also active as the editorial secretary of Bacapetra.co, a website that focuses on developing literature and literacy in East Nusa Tenggara.
Raising the issue of literacy in East Nusa Tenggara, where access to quality books is still very limited, Maria and her collaborator patjarmerah-Renjana Indonesia will organize a book market as part of Flores Writers Festival 2022. To support this program, they will also open a bookshop in Ruteng as a repository for books to be distributed during the book market at the Flores Writers Festival every year. In addition, they will also list and curate publishers and bookstores in East Nusa Tenggara to introduce their works to the wider public in Indonesia.
Novan Effendy (Gresik)
is a cultural activist and practitioner who's been working to preserve the Damar Kurung lantern from Gresik, East Java, since 2010. He has been the driving force behind multiple Damar Kurung festivals as well as research and archiving through the Damar Kurung Institute since 2012. Based on their experience organizing cultural events, Novan invited the Rakarsa Foundation from Bandung to help determine innovative methods to expand Damar Kurung's social and aesthetic contexts in modern urban culture. It's their purpose to discover more about Damar Kurung's heritage and derivative forms.
Novan and Rakarsa Foundation are experimenting with a number of activities to introduce Damar Kurung to various social groups in Bandung, including women's communities, government officials, academics, and entrepreneurs. Damar Kurung becomes their visual language to express their concerns and opinions on current social issues and the environment around them in the manner of a workshop, group discussion forum, and a temporary mini-museum in the context of the “culture of light”.
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