Tuesday 6th June 2017, 11am – 4pm,
Tropenmuseum, Linnaeusstraat 2, 1092 CK Amsterdam

Heterotropics and the Research Center for Material Culture are pleased to announce the symposium Tropical Dissonance: Decolonizing knowledge through ethnographic archives on Tuesday June 6th. The symposium is organized with the research collective KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) as a concluding event of their residency project at the Tropenmuseum. Tropical Dissonance brings together scholars, curators and artists from a wide range of practices to explore the intersections between decolonial research, artistic practices and alternative knowledge production. Focusing on the use of ethnographic objects, or more broadly colonial archives in imperial and post imperial knowledge formation, we want to explore the multiple, often hidden, fractured legacies of this colonial past in the present and its impact on how we understand the world today. The contributors of this symposium will discuss various methodologies of studying colonial archives and epistemologies, through different sensorial approaches and experiences.

During the symposium speakers will address questions such as:
1 — If to study is understood as a practice of reflection that involves the interplay between learning and unlearning, what are the modes of study that we can utilize to better understand colonial pasts in the present? What modes of learning or unlearning should we employ to achieve a decolonial practice?
2 — How can we reclaim and reconfigure the ambivalence of colonial desire in its attempts to both “civilize” and “appropriate” otherness through representational economies of education, collection, dispossession and exhibition?
3 — How can we activate the ruins of ethnographic and archival gaze as a means to reorganize knowledge circulations between the tropics and the metropolis from the inside out?
4 — How do these shifting relationships affect the material life of objects (collection, commodity, archive, artefact) and practices of mediation (language, aesthetics, research)?

The symposium will start with a conversation between KUNCI and Wayne Modest (Head of the Research Center for Material Culture, which takes as a point of departure, KUNCI’s observations, findings and questions generated over the six weeks of the residency.

If you wish to attend this event, please send an email to [email protected]. Due to a limited number of seats, reservation is mandatory.

Schedule — Tuesday 6th June 2017
11 am – 12 noon KUNCI in conversation with Wayne Modest
1 pm – 1.30 pm Introduction by Ferdi Thajib and Sara Giannini
1.30 pm – 2.30 pm Panel 1: On Listening, with Adam Bobbette, Carolyn Birdsall and Wendelien van Oldenborgh. Moderated by Syafiatudina.
2.30 pm – 2.50 pm Break
2.50 pm – 3.50 pm Panel 2: On Looking, with Pamela Pattynama, Paul Bijl, Wim Manuhutu. Moderated by Brigitta Isabella.
3.50 pm – 4.30 pm Conversation on Exhibiting and Sensing with Fiky Daulay, Nuraini Juliastuti, and Pim Westerkamp. Moderated by Sara Giannini.

This event will be broadcasted live through Radio KUNCI. Podcasts from this research residency are also available in Radio KUNCI.

About Heterotropics #2
The Research Center for Material Culture in collaboration with the research platform Heterotropics, invited KUNCI Cultural Studies Center to be Researchers in Residence at the Tropenmuseum for the period May – June 2017. Heterotropics is curated by Sara Giannini in collaboration with TAAK. KUNCI’s residency project has been done with the kind support of the Research Center for Material Culture, Amsterdamse Fonds voor de Kunst, and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds.

Photo information: Stand of the education system in the Dutch East Indies in the second Dutch pavilion on the Colonial World Exhibition in Paris, 1931. Archive of Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Susie Protschky’s book, Images of the Tropics, tells us about colonial images of the tropics. They narrate different narratives of how the Dutch envisioned the tropics, justified their territorial claims, and made sense of their place within imperial Europe and the colonial Indonesia. In the conversation, Susie talked about the recurring themes and omissions in colonial visual culture, forms of representations (object of fixation and fantasies, visibility and invisibility) that appropriated to claim for territorial and political sovereignty. In this audio, Susie Protschky are being interviewed by Nuraini Juliastuti, member of KUNCI. Editor: Syafiatudina

Download the audio file via this link.

We invited Bart Luttikhuis, a KITLV researcher, for our live radio series during research residency at Tropenmuseum for heterotropics. The interview discussed his research topics that revolves around Europeanness, modernity and education during the Indonesian late colonial East Indies. This interview was conducted by Brigitta Isabella, Fiky Daulay and Nuraini Juliastuti. Editor: Fiky Daulay

Download the audio file via this link.

The talk was aired live inside the Tropenmuseum with Rene Boer, an urban researcher and writer based in Amsterdam. We discussed about his research collective called “failed architecture”. The discussion went further to the notion of “ruin” as a critical entry point in questioning architecture in its relation to power structure. The discussion was followed by unveiling the notion of appropriation through squatting practice either in Amsterdam context and its critical dimension at looking archives in museal context. Concept of appropriation led us to the unavoidable dimension of spatiality of the colonial archive and the question of contemporariness of heritage. The talk was conducted by Fiky Daulay and Nuraini Juliastuti. Editor: Fiky Daulay

Download the audio file via this link.

Raisa Kamila shared her master research project at Universiteit Leiden about the role of Acehnese local collaborators in relation to train as colonial infrastructure. It focuses on the shift of uleebalang’s involvement which has been often seen as betrayal through colonial “legacy” history writing into local collaborators that encouraged local resistance. Her research implies the negation of “victim” as often voiced through NGOs discourse impinged upon Aceh locality in contemporary Indonesia. The interview was conducted by Fiky Daulay as part of Kunci’s research residency with Heterotropics#2 at Tropenmuseum. Editor: Fiky Daulay

Download the audio file via this link.

“Live tour at Dapperbuurt” was created as part of Kunci’s research residency project at Tropen museum at Heterotropics#2. The tour contained a discussion and a walk with a Dutch architecture historian Marieke Van Rooy. The discussion was started with her Phd research with 3 case studies area in Netherland: Biljmermeer, Dapperbuurt, and Almere. She has been researching about the shift of development in the areas since 60’s-70’s. The interconnection among the areas lays on the separation of the immigrants and the city in Biljmejmeer as it was also reflected by the constant changing of the Dapperbuurt development. The discussion was followed by her dilution trilogy project about psychiatric institutions which are related to the Netherlands. It was later followed by visiting Dapperbuurt where few examples pragmatic development of the housing were. It led us to how Marieke used the archive from initiator of the collaboration of inhabitants of Dapperbuurt with architects they chose during the 60’s. The interview was conducted by Fiky Daulay. Editor: Fiky Daulay

Download the audio file via this link.

The recording was created by Fiky Daulay as part of Kunci research residency at Tropenmuseum under the project of Heterotropics #2. This audio recording was taken in May 7th 2017 in Netherlands East Indies exhibition area, 2nd floor of Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, The Netherlands and in April 27th 2017 in klithikan Niten flea market, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Download the audio file via this link.

The recording was created by Fiky Daulay as part of Kunci research residency at Tropenmuseum under the project of Heterotropics #2. It contains an excerpt from chapter 9 of “Manusia Bebas” written by Suwarsih Djojopuspito and traffic soundscape in Southern Jakarta.

Download the audio file via this link.