Announcement: Atelier KITLV-Framer Framed Artist in Residence

As the partnering institution of Atelier KITLV, Framer Framed is pleased to announce Theo Frids Marulitua Hutabarat as the selected artist of the annual residency open call Atelier KITLV: Experimental Knowledge in Art, Activism, and Academia. In the coming months, we will work closely with the artist in developing his project through workshops and conversations around art, archive and activism.

November 2021

Experimental Approaches Towards Research
Framer Framed and Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) shares an interest in critically exploring colonial structures of knowledge production through artistic and academic means. At the same time, we understand that, coming from different trajectories, we hold our own strengths and limitations. With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and environmental injustices, there seems to be an urgent need to connect different communities and work across different forms of knowledge-formation in order to comprehend and tackle pressing matters of our times.

It is precisely under this condition that we have decided to join forces with the collaboration Atelier KITLV: Experimental Knowledge in Art, Activism, and Academia. With an annual residency programme, the project encourages experimental and artistic approaches that is committed in facilitating meaningful modes of research in and beyond academic institutions. The annual residency invites one or more artists, curators, writers, and activists engaging with local and transnational matters of the past and present to develop a commissioned project.

Throughout the residency period, Framer Framed and Atelier KITLV will exchange our learnings with the public on the intersections of arts, social sciences and the humanities through series of workshops, conversations and presentations. In doing so, we seek to actively partake in critical debates and further contribute in stimulating creative forms of knowledge to better address societal and historical problems.

Check the Atelier KITLV announcement

Rethinking Archival Images through Artistic Practices
For the first year of the annual residency, it is our great pleasure to announce Theo Frids Marulitua Hutabarat (b. 1987, Bandung, Indonesia) as the selected artist. The selection committee was fascinated by Hutabarat’s take on archives of the colonial past of the Dutch East Indies and the way in which the anonymous photographers play a role in constructing the history.

As Hutabarat observes, “archival images have transformative power that, in return, create and legitimise power. Thus, I take interest on the archives of KITLV which I see as crucial factor to exercise civic rights regarding Indonesia’s history, where ‘the anonymous’ took a great part of it.”

Theo Frids Marulitua Hutabarat
Theo Frids Marulitua Hutabarat has a Master’s degree in Fine Art from the Faculty of Art and Design at Bandung Institute of Technology. His work was part of group exhibitions in Bandung, Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Singapore, Turin and Yogyakarta. During the residency period, Theo Frids Marulitua Hutabarat will have access to KITLV collections and engage with the research works of KITLV staff to inform and inspire his work. Framer Framed will facilitate the project by developing an online workshop together with the artist and art spaces in Bandung.

The workshop will experiment with ways to disrupt the ‘official narrative’ and imagine ‘unmediated versions’ of histories built upon genuine engagement with images. The commissioned work will serve as a starting point for ongoing reflection on the changing character of the KITLV, as well as the first in a series of visual conversations to which future artists may respond. More information of the workshop will be announced soon on our website.

Read more about the background of Atelier KITLV: Experimental Knowledge in Art, Activism, and Academia here.