book launch the well respected man or book of echoes - wendelien van oldenborg 13 May 2011 Location: Auditorium, Temporary Stedelijk 2 Entrance fee: Free with a valid Museum ticket Language: English Reservations: Required This Books @ TS2 event marks the launch of the publication A Well Respected Man, Or Book of Echoes. The book, edited by curator Binna Choi and artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh, investigates the many rich layers of Indonesia’s Dutch colonial history and its legacy. Through an assembly of various types of media and voices from both past and present (including von Oldenborgh’s own writings and films), the editors create modes for engaging with this heritage and today’s postcolonial conditions. The book centers on the literary piece Als ik eens Nederlander was (What if I Were a Dutchman), written and published in 1913 by the Indonesian nationalist and polemic thinker Soewardi Soerjaningrat. Poignant and filled with repressed rage, this essay is both a fearless critique towards the Dutch colonists and an eloquent manifesto calling for a new national Indonesian identity. However, this seemingly nationalistic gesture of resistance becomes much more complex in light of the evolution of colonial and postcolonial politics. This is underscored by the fact that Soerwardi himself changed his strategy – and also his name, to Ki Hajar Dewantara – from one of an oppositional activist to an education reformer, founding a movement called Taman Siswa (Garden of Students), that, with its combination of traditional Javanese values and Western subjects, was more collaborative than antagonistic. The duality of these positions of resistance, here personified in one figure, guides the publication and elicits the questions for this event. In the company of the contributors to the book and other invited speakers, we will exchange ideas for urgent pedagogic matters – or other modes of protest – concerning the postcolonial condition and its echoes. In doing so, we will discuss how we can move beyond the topics of (post)colonial victimhood and guilt, or identity politics and the crisis of national identity, and towards the construction of an imaginary transnational field where a new ethos and subjectivity can be developed. A Well Respected Man, Or Book of Echoes is the first edition of the Electric Palm Tree Textbook series, which aims to complement textbooks in the existing educational context while reassessing the politics of culture and addressing cultural complexity in an increasingly globalized world. Electric Palm Tree (www.electricpalmtree.org) is a long-term curatorial project for transnational research and practice. It is currently powered by Casco, an Utrecht-based public institution dedicated to research-based and interdisciplinary practices in the fields of art and design. The book is published in English and in part translated into Dutch and Indonesian. During the book launch event, the book will be available for purchase at a special price. Designed by Julia Born Co-published by Casco and Sternberg Press ISBN: 978-1- 934105-22-1, € 18 This event is organized by Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory for Electric Palm Tree, in collaboration with Temporary Stedelijk 2 and made possible with the support of Fonds BKVB and its pilot program for cultural diversity. Program 1:30 pm Prologue by Binna Choi (director, Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht) and Wendelien van Oldenborgh (visual artist, Rotterdam) 1:50 pm Intervention with Nuraini Juliastuti (director, KUNCI Cultural Studies Center in Yogyakarta) 2:10 pm Presentations by Lizzy van Leeuwen (cultural anthropologist), Anke Bangma (curator of contemporary arts, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam), Baukje Prins (lector, Haagse Hogeschool, The Hague), and Nancy Jouwe (program director, Kosmopolis, Utrecht) 3:00 pm Debate 4:00 pm End More information about the speakers Anke Bangma is a cultural theorist and curator. In 2009, she produced the exhibitionPerforming Evidence at SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, which was the culmination of the research project “Performative Documents.” The project aimed to contribute to discussions about the document and the relationship between representation and reality, with a specific focus on the structuring role of visual practices for people’s behavior, identity, and sense of self. From 1999 to 2007, Bangma was course director of the Fine Art program at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. She was recently appointed as curator of contemporary arts at the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam. Nancy Jouwe is program director at Kosmopolis Utrecht, a local, interurban and international multimedia platform that nourishes a profound dialogue between communities through art and culture, both nationwide and internationally. Jouwe is also director of the Papua Cultural Heritage Foundation in Utrecht. She is particularly interested in women’s studies, gender and ethnicity, Papua heritage and identity, and intercultural or transcultural art projects. Jouwe is co-publisher of Papua’s? Oja, die bestaan echt, hè? Een inventarisatie van de positie van Papuavrouwen in Nederland, 1958-1992 (with Marlise Mensink, 1993) and Caleidoscopische Visies. De zwarte, migranten- en vluchtelingenvrouwenbeweging in Nederland (with Maayke Botman and Prof. Gloria Wekker, 2000). Nuraini Juliastuti is a cultural anthropologist, critic, and writer. She is the co-founder and director of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, a platform concerned with investigative approaches to cultural issues, and which organizes educational and youth empowerment activities. Juliastuti’s writing focuses on and reviews the postcolonial Indonesian condition in relation to its historiography, whereby she reflects on the discourse in terms of organic hybridities generated by the mass media. Juliastuti is a contributor to the book A Well Respected Man, Or Book of Echoes. Lizzy van Leeuwen is a cultural anthropologist who writes for the weekly journal De Groene Amsterdammer. Her research encompasses issues such as postcolonial and migrant identity politics, and Dutch-Indo relations in the postcolonial context, with a focus on the absence of meaningful debate in the Netherlands with regards to Indonesian (de)colonization. In this vein, she organized an investigative project as part of Bringing History Home: Postcolonial Identity Politics in the Netherlands (2005-2008), initiated by the Royal Dutch Academy for Sciences and the research institute NOW, eventually resulting in the book Ons Indisch Erfgoed: zestig jaar strijd om cultuur en identiteit (2008). Van Leeuwen is a contributor to the book A Well Respected Man, Or Book of Echoes. Baukje Prins is a lector of Citizenship and Diversity at the Haagse Hogeschool in The Hague. Prins’ research revolves around feminist theory, multiculturalism, and citizenship. She addresses issues such as ethnicity, identity as a narrative construction, and integration and immigration in the Netherlands and in comparison to other countries. She received her PhD in 1997, writing her dissertation on the subject of feminist epistemology and the Dutch minorities discourse. Prins is a writer for magazines and has been part of public debates. Her book on interethnic relations in the Netherlands, based on the lives of her Frisian and Moluccan classmates from the 1960s, will be published in August 2011. Binna Choi is director of Casco — Office for Art, Design and Theory, an Utrecht-based public institution dedicated to research-based and interdisciplinary practices in the fields of art and design, with an emphasis on collaborative and imaginary modes of inquiriy into our social and political environments. Together with curator Kyongfa Che, she has organized Electric Palm Tree, a transnational artistic research project that focuses on the politics of culture and knowledge production. Choi is a contributor to and editor of the book A Well Respected Man, Or Book of Echoes. Wendelien van Oldenborgh is an artist based in Rotterdam. Her work focuses on the dynamics of cultural identity in society by communicating the interactions between individuals. She often works against the historical grain and in public locations, using the film lens to investigate these intricacies, which allows for an alternative public discourse to take place. Currently, she is working on a new production for If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, an Amsterdam based platform for the exploration of performance and performativity in contemporary art, and she will be participating in the upcoming Venice Biennale. Van Oldenborgh is a contributor to and the initiator of the book A Well Respected Man, Or Book of Echoes.

• Trefwoorden
  monografie, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam [Activiteiten/Lezingen/Muziekuitvoeringen], Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam [Tentoonstellingen], beeld- en/of geluidsdrager, boek
• Persoonstrefwoord
  Wendelien van Oldenborgh