'Feminisms And Contemporary Art In Indonesia: Defining Experiences'

In an unprecedented, inclusive exploration of feminisms in Indonesian contemporary art, author Wulan Dirgantoro, who is currently based in Melbourne after completing her Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices Programme at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin, looks at the artistic practices of women artists in Indonesia, such as Arahmaiani, Titarubi and IGAK Murniasih, and focuses on the feminist strategies they use not only to make their artworks but also to navigate the Indonesian art world against the sociocultural and political contexts unique to the country.

- Wulan Dirgantoro

The book’s refreshing take on how to better understand the way Indonesian women artists create art, achieved through a careful feminist rereading of their works, and illustrated through persuasive analysis of the selected case studies, will nudge both enthusiasts of and experts on Indonesian contemporary art to rethink what they thought they knew.

ART REPUBLIK speaks with Wulan about research for the book, the problematic feminist “label”, and what more can be done to support women artists in Indonesia.

In your acknowledgements at the beginning of the book, you noted that the Indonesian Visual Art Archives was a great resource. The current issue of ART REPUBLIK is themed ‘Collecting’, where we examine the act of collecting, from personal to institutional levels, including archiving challenges and possibilities in the digital age. Could you talk about how the archive was instrumental to your research?