About
"I see Emiria's works as a form of solidarity that was born out of the spirit of camaraderie, and it ought to be appreciated. But I think her works that depict Papuans seem to only narrate Papua superficially; they have not touched upon the realities of the Papuan people."
–Betty Adii, as part of a dialogue with Dicky Takndare and Michael Yan Devis (Udeido Collective) in response to works by Emiria Sunassa for the exhibition Familiar Others.
Emiria Sunassa (1894-1964) was a pioneering and highly original modernist painter from Indonesia who was active in the 1930s to 1950s. Likely born in 1894 in Tanah Wangko in North Sulawesi, she also claimed descent from the former Sultan of Tidore, and through that, asserted a claim to be the rightful ruler of Papua. At the same time, she depicted peoples from across the Indonesian archipelago in her artworks, creating representations of Papua, Kalimantan, Bali and Sumatra for the audience in Batavia (the old name for Jakarta).
For the exhibition Familiar Others, the Gallery commissioned Udeido–a contemporary visual art collective founded by a group of young Papuan artists–to respond to Emiria Sunassa's works.
Join this roundtable discussion with art historian Wulan Dirgantoro, Udeido Collective and curators Anissa Rahadiningtyas and Phoebe Scott as they delve into Emiria Sunassa's paintings of "the Other" in Indonesia, and their implications today.
About the speakers
Wulan Dirgantoro is a Lecturer in Art History and Curatorship in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include gender and feminism, and trauma and memory in Indonesian modern and contemporary art. Prior to her current role, she was a lecturer at the MA Asian Art Histories program at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore (2014-2016), Research Fellow of Kunstgeschichte und ästhetische Praktiken 2016/2017 program (Forum Transregionale Studien) and Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI), Berlin. She is currently working on a research project on historical violence and contemporary art in Indonesia and Timor-Leste.
Udeido is a contemporary visual art collective founded by a group of young Papuan artists in 2018. Their work seeks to reconstruct ancient, traditional local concepts in their communities, using them to discuss contemporary socio-cultural issues. Udeido has held several important exhibitions related to Papuan issues, such as Mairi (2019) and Tonawi Mana (2020). In 2021, they collaborated with Asia Justice and Rights to hold the exhibition Sa Pu Kisah, which focused on women's rights in Papua. They participated in the Jogja Biennale XVI in the same year, and were featured in the Present Continuous exhibition at MACAN Museum Jakarta in 2022.
Anissa Rahadiningtyas is an art historian who earned her Ph.D. in Art History at Cornell University for her research on the position and question of Islamic religiosity, rituals and performances in works of modern and contemporary art in Indonesia. She is currently an Assistant Curator of Islamic aesthetics in modern and contemporary Southeast Asia at National Gallery Singapore. Her research interests include comparative modernisms, Indian Ocean studies, postcolonial and decolonial theories, gender and feminism, environmentalism and Islamic studies.
Phoebe Scott is Senior Curator and Curator of Research Publications at National Gallery Singapore and is the curator of the exhibition Familiar Others: Emiria Sunassa, Eduardo Masferré and Yeh Chi Wei, 1940s-1970s (2022). She was also a collaborating curator on the exhibition Ever Present: First People's Art of Australia (2022) and co-curator of the inaugural exhibition of the UOB Southeast Asia Gallery, Between Declarations and Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia since the 19th Century (2015). She is also an adjunct lecturer in art history at the National University of Singapore.
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When: 08 Apr 2023 - Where: Supreme Court Wing, Level 4M, Glass Room