Artistic techniques and strategies for community survival and mutual cooperation in contemporary Southeast Asia
Type
Single PanelSchedule
Session 1Wed 11:00-12:30 Room 3.08
Conveners
- Luigi Monteanni School of Oriental and African Studies
- Marianna Lis Independent Researcher
Discussant
- James Cerretani University of London
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Add to CalendarPapers
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Multisensory Inventions: Artistic Processes of Transnational Rohingya Networks as a Response to Genocide, Protracted Forced Migration, and COVID-19.
James Cerretani University of London
This paper emphasizes the processual and inventive nature of artistic and multimodal practices by transnational Rohingya networks as a means of mitigating the effects of contemporary crises. It draws from my fieldwork and participatory research as a visual artist and anthropologist-in- training by means of artistic and ethnographic methods such as participatory youth cinema, graphic ethnography, photography, and ethnofiction.
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“Noise in times of trouble”: Senyawa, the Alkisah network and the decentralization of an underground music community
Luigi Monteanni University of London
Senyawa are an avant-garde duo based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, formed by singer Rully Shabara and poly-instrumentalist Wukir Suryadi. Since 2010 they have released various studio albums and pursued one of the possible crossovers between Indonesian regional genres and transnational extreme popular music movements, thus becoming an inspiration for musicians operating in the field worldwide.
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Wayang kardus by Taring Padi as a tool for social change and justice
Marianna Lis Independent Researcher
Taring Padi was founded in Yogyakarta in 1998 by a group of art students and activists in response to the overthrow of the Suharto regime and a subsequent process of democratization. One of the first tools used by the collective has been wayang kardus – life-size puppets made of recycled cardboard. Wayang kardus builds from the Javanese shadow puppet theater: wayang kulit, which despite continuous attempts by national authorities to link it with official state policies, remains an important way of community-building and expression in Java for marginalized communities as well. Artists/activists from Taring Padi create new wayang kardus characters together with members of local communities, collectives and minorities from Java and other Indonesian regions.
Abstract
Ongoing and recent dramatic phenomena such as Covid-19 pandemic and climate change as well as civil and existential crises are threatening social groups throughout Southeast Asia with ever increasing pressure and tolls on the more fragile subjects, political assemblages and minorities, generating in response a plethora of different approaches and adaptation mechanisms transforming the social landscape in many ways. In particular, artists and artistic communities are progressively taking up the mantle of social enterprise employing constructively their creative know-hows as counterstrategies to such challenges.
The purpose of the panel is hence to invite scholars, researchers and activists to join this conversation in order to not only discuss how critical phenomena such as the aforementioned are changing the shapes and boundaries (both ideological and physical) of regional and indigenous communities of artists settled throughout SEA but more interestingly to consider which kinds of - either innovative, creative or even traditional - imaginative and expressive strategies, networks of care and narratives communities are engaging with so as to engender survival and cooperation in their area or relevant surroundings with the scope of harm reduction and mitigation, or simply to spread awareness about these issues. The presentations will be considering in particular which kind of impact (effective or supposed) said undertakings had or are having on social groups and the environment they inhabit.