藝評

Above image: Promotional image of Hadi the Hero (2024) by Abbas Baluchi from Arkipel Festival 

 

(Editor’s note: Videotage participated in the 2025 ARKIPEL—Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival with a special screening programme; artist‑researcher Wong Winsome Dumalagan took part in the event. During a two‑week stay, she conducted focused research into Indonesian video art and screen culture, attending screenings and talks, visiting local archives, and meeting local artists. This article presents her observations and reflections from that research trip, tracing encounters, emergent themes, and cultural contexts that shaped her findings.)

 

（編按： 錄映太奇策劃的特別放映節目參與了 2025 年 ARKIPEL—雅加達國際紀錄片與實驗電影節；黃慧心以藝術家兼研究員身份參與其中。在為期兩週的行程中，她集中研究印尼錄像藝術與螢幕文化、參加放映會及講座、走訪檔案庫，並與當地藝術家交流。本文呈現她此行的觀察與反思，梳理遇見的人事、浮現的主題，以及形塑其研究發現的文化脈絡。） 

 

The Vernacular: Homelands, Soil, Wind and Realms

by Wong Winsome Dumalagan

 

During a 2025 Arkipel panel discussion, “Vernacular Language in Global Geopolitics”, Papuan songs—described as vernacular literature—were linked to vernacular architecture. The term “vernacular” has stayed with me since. Vernacular architecture is often defined as a type of building design that responds to local needs and materials, grounded in community knowledge rather than formal institutional training. In Chinese, it is written  as 「鄉土建築」—“鄉” (homeland, countryside) and “土” (earth, land)—or as 「風土建築」, emphasising “wind” and “earth”, the climate and material conditions of a place. The latter translation foregrounds elemental forces rather than institutional categories and locations.

Tracing the origin of the word further leads us to the Latin verna—a slave born in a master’s house—suggesting informality, marginality, and distance from authority. Whether understood as “homeland”, “soil”, or “custom”, the vernacular emerges from organic, lived contexts: languages, dialects, songs, architectures, and stories formed outside official unifying systems—be they colonial administrations or modern nation-states. These vernacular forms carried their own worldviews, emotions, and logic before they were absorbed (swallowed) or standardised (unified) by linguistic and political authorities, and before vernacular architectures were replaced by urban planning and standardised high-rises—structures often indifferent to wind, soil, species, or natural habitats. Languages and places that once sheltered us were gradually stripped of their contexts and lost their grounding.

 

When trying to understand the vernacular in today’s world of globalisation, industrialisation, and accelerated mobility, particularly through the lens of videos and films where they are inevitably products of technological advancement—and to many places, the products of foreign invention—could film or video language cultivate its own vernacular quality while remaining bound to modern media? How do we understand the idea of “homeland”? How do we communicate a sense of the “local” to audiences shaped by different cultural backgrounds? Where are the “wind” and “soil” that once formed our raw materials for building places in our “homelands”? What becomes of the “wind” and “soil” that once anchored our sense of “homeland” in contemporary society? As borders shift and people move, and with urban development booming around the globe, the physical “homeland” could be faraway, demolished or even not exist.  Will the idea of “鄉”—a local, native land—become less geographic and physical than mnemonic, conceptual, or imagined?

 

These questions were amplified at Arkipel. Filmmakers from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and more—alongside Indonesian filmmakers from diverse cultural backgrounds—brought different notions of “localness” into dialogue, particularly the idea of the “local” in relation to the “world”. Exchanges with Indonesian friends, in particular, deepened my sense of the organic, fertile traditions being safeguarded, even as rapid global change presses on. Featuring an array of films and perspectives from different parts of the world, the festival became a space to rethink the “world” and the “local” through shifting lenses.

1st Anchor: Layers of the “Local”

My inquiry into media art in Indonesia begins with a preliminary review of relevant literature and video works related to the early stage media art development. When tracing the history of video art in Indonesia, one invariably encounters Krisna Murti (1957-2023), a pioneer who integrated video into installation practices while negotiating traditional culture with a sensibility that oscillates between humour, irony, and critique amid ongoing socio-economic change. As curator Asikin Hasan observes,^[1] Krisna often laughed in agreement, and sometimes interrupted and disputed discussions on tradition, behaviour, and the paradoxes embedded in society; at times he mocked the seriousness of “the West”, while at others he expressed a sincere pride in “the East”.^[2] Meanwhile, curator Jeong-ok Jeon remarks on Krisna’s belief that Indonesians tend to articulate meaning through facial and bodily gestures rather than direct verbal expression—without understanding such bodily vernacular, foreigners tend to misunderstand a local’s true intention.^[3]

 

As a visitor still learning the contours of Indonesia’s cultural and artistic landscape, these insights made for interesting anchors. It might take some time to be able to fully grasp the humour embedded in the works and to understand how locals themselves view their culture, especially given the diverse cultural and geopolitical backgrounds involved. There could always be a gap between a foreigner’s expectations of the “local” and the rich, fluid cultural contexts perceived from within—contexts continuously reshaped by global, social, political, and economic forces.

 

Krisna’s 12 Hours in the Life of Agung Rai, the Dancer (1993) offers an illustration. Beyond documenting a traditional dance, the work dwells on facial expressions, the dancer’s exposed belly, and gestures performed against the movement of the waves, producing layers of embodied nuance. Krisna himself, with a Balinese mother and Javanese father, born in Kupang and a graduate of the Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), embodied Indonesia’s cultural multiplicity and the mobility within such a vast archipelagic state—an internal plurality echoed in the textures of his practice. Beginning with artists and filmmakers—whether internationally recognised or working locally—becomes a productive method for mapping the diverse perspectives through which the “local” is represented, questioned, and continually reimagined.

 

   

Krisna Murti’s 12 Hours in the Life of Agung Rai, the Dancer, documentation in 1993, see: https://youtu.be/nJ96llODHkE?si=zVHW1hFJjcqzBRJq 

 

 

  

Krisna Murti’s 12 Hours in the Life of Agung Rai, the Dancer, documentation in 2023, National Gallery Singapore, see: https://youtu.be/XHvilG5kMaY?si=Ge2Oy4Q-uArFFZ43)

2nd Anchor: The Vernacular and the Museum

During Arkipel, at the aforementioned panel discussion and a screening programme featuring his film, Papuan filmmaker Yonri Revolt shared extensively about the vernacular in his homeland, Papua, located at the easternmost province of Indonesia (around four to six hours by flight from Jakarta). Beginning in 1855, Christian churches and missionaries repressed Papuan culture; the people then lived through another wave of cultural repression after Indonesia's “nationalisation” of Papua in 1961 and the introducion of a “national culture”. In 1978, the collective named Mambesak - the Bird of Paradise was formed to preserve and promote Papuan culture, including languages, through Papuan folk songs. The group was dissolved after the leader, Arnold Ap, was killed by the military in 1984. Meanwhile, 110 languages were recorded across 255 indigenous communities through the efforts of Mambesak, archiving Papuan folk songs and compiling them into albums. Beyond vocabulary, musical scales and tonal structures were identified as markers of cultural identity.

In Tete, Nene, Permisi (Temple of Ancestors) (2025), a film by Yonri Revolt and Mahardika Yudha that was screened at Arkipel’s film programme, the Loka Budaya Museum becomes an organic protagonist. With Arnold Ap, who founded Mambesak, as the first curator, the museum of Papuan history and artefacts became a container of the historical and cultural objects of the ethnic communities around Papua and also a container for the visitors and staff of the museum. Personal memories, myths, and historical fragments are intermingled through the voices of staff members such as Enrico Kondologit and Soleman Soendemi. The museum becomes a living organism: stories accumulate around it without strict boundaries between fact, memory, and belief. In the film, the trajectory of the system of the organisation of the museum is discussed, unveiling different interpretations and personal memories of stories around the museum, some of which involve spiritual beliefs. The museum itself becomes an organic entity where these stories, memories and interpretations grow around it, sometimes indistinguishable (or perhaps not needing to be distinguishable) from historical facts, personal memories and myths. The film is woven from personal narratives of different stakeholders, including family histories and memories around the community, rather than grand historical and institutional narratives. The film is perhaps an effective illustration of the dynamic characteristics of the narratives of history, where the inclusion of personal and family histories contributes to maintaining the cultural identity of the community. As Enrico mentioned about the inevitable mixtures of descents among different ethnic communities along social development and the need for symbols to sustain cultural identities, this also points to further questions about the idea of “homeland.” In the face of urban and social political development, changes of political authorities, and increasing mobility of people, how are the stories about “homeland” being told and passed on? The development of the museum and the changing ways of categorisation and organisation also act as a demonstration of how local knowledge is built and intertwined with the times and storytelling.

 

  

 

  

Video stills from Tete, Nene, Permisi (Temple of Ancestors) (2025) by Yonri Revolt and Mahardika Yudh

 

3rd Anchor: Tales and Myths

This intertwining of personal histories with storytelling also resonates with the opening film of Arkipel Festival 2025, Hadi the Hero (2024) by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Baluchi, which prompted the audience to reflect on how one creates a personal system of remembering and imagining, particularly when far away from urban centres. The 85-year-old protagonist, Sadegh Rezao, creates his own cosmology of paintings and sculptures around the alleys near his home, some recording his own and family stories. Some of these stories are at times indistinguishable from myths and fables. In the final shot where Sadegh lies down in his own garden, instructing the director to conduct an aerial shot of the garden he has created and far from other vegetation, he becomes the creator of memory, paradise, and the world, as if he was the god of this land, even if none would remain eternal. This system of recording and storytelling is akin to building museums—sculptures and paintings could be turned into artefacts and symbols, awaiting other interpretations in the future, similar to how Hadi tells his own stories and histories.

 

Promotional image of Hadi the Hero (2024) by Abbas Baluchi, for Arkipel Festival 2025

 

 

The Vernacular as an Organic Process

The vernacular is perhaps the fluidity and organicness to what is around, who is coming in and out; it could be a constant act of building and construction, not the fixed narration by the institution or those in power. Like the reconstruction of the museum in Temple of Ancestors, with people coming in and out of the museum, including kids playing barefoot; also, the recollections of museum staff of how parents made similar crafts as the artefacts displayed in the museum; and, the old man’s constant construction of his artworks in Hadi the Hero is an organic and dynamic container that interacts with the present and the past.

 

This organic process became even more pronounced in Milisifilem Collective’s programme,^[4]where participants learned about film and video and created their own works under the theme of One Hundred Years of Solitude by writer Gabriel García Márquez. Participants presented works shaped by their localities and interpretations of the book. Among them, Tiger Conversations by Beny Kristia gathers stories related to tigers, mostly from his peers. Some shared their impressions of tigers related to social media and tik-tok. One of them recalled his memories of seeing a tiger in his province of Solok, located in West Sumatra, where the people still practised hunting. He recounted how, on a hunting trip with his uncle when he was young, he saw a tiger stretch against a tree like a cat. The Indonesian friends liked the film for its humour. As a foreigner, it was not easy for me to follow the content and its context. I found it essential to ask Indonesian friends for their insights so that I could pick up nuances that I had missed as an outsider, even then I might still not be able to fully grasp them. Another film not screened during the festival, but was shared by a collective member is a short film called Saya di Sini, Kau di Sana (A Tale of the Crocodile's Twin) (2022) by Taufiqurrahman Kifu. In the film, tales relating to crocodiles around Palu Bay, during Indonesia’s colonial period, leading the viewer to contemporary myths and tales, while also harkening back to older tales about crocodiles around the area. There are many shots in the film illustrating the current development of the area and how that has led to more frequent appearances of crocodiles. Tales featuring crocodiles have always appeared in different forms throughout history.

 

While  the development of film and video has been inevitably shaped by influences from the West, including technological development, film and institutional development, and the usage of film and video in the contemporary art scene, could there be possibilities of the vernacular lying within film and video language beyond content relating to the vernacular? During the presentation of the abovementioned programme, the visual language in the film Fishguts by Anada Firman caught my attention. The short film depicts a market without using much verbal narration, moving between closeups of fish and wider environmental shots. As the short film was shot with a camera with sub-par low-light capabilities, the film's pixellation is so obvious that it almost performs like grains. The closeups and the wider shots of the environment evoke the smell, the humidity, the light and darkness, the noise and the flow of people around the market. The shots are extremely intimate, as if pressing the sensations onto the audience, leaving them with no room to escape. It is rather difficult to draw the line and explain it clearly, but sometimes one could tell that some works are fulfilling certain standards or expectations (always those from the powers that be and institutions, or with so-called industrial standards), while some others—Fishguts being one—are vividly refreshing and intuitive, where one could feel the visual language/film/video language, which is instinctive, intimate and direct. Perhaps when we say we like it "raw” when viewing film and video works, we are thinking of the revelation of the process, the materials—the “wind” and “soil”, all the “touches” that we could sense or imagine the creator was once situated in, certain myths and histories that are contained in the film.

 

 

 

 

Video stills from Fishguts (2025) by Anada Firman

 

 

Arkipel’s film programme “A Repository of Collective Memory: Local’s Embodied Memory of Flooding in Jakarta” showed an impressive effort from the collective in getting into different communities in documenting varied perspectives on the floods around Jakarta, including family histories and histories of the communities, hinting at how flooding could be a result of urban development. The way the histories were told reminds me of the films Temple of Ancestors and Hadi the Hero, and also the book One Hundred Years of Solitude, in which personal and family stories are told over and over; these stories are eventually turned into histories of a community and subsequently histories of a place, traversing different generations and times. However, many of these personal narratives become submerged in the grand narratives of social-political development and need to find their own ways to be circulated. Hafiz Rancajale’s film Bachtiar (2025) dissects memories related to the Indonesian director Bachtiar Siagian, whose personal history is so often buried amid the grand narratives of national history and political development. Perhaps film is a way to navigate these perspectives and create dialogues around them, allowing one to form a more dynamic and fluid sense of the world, from different places, times, and personal histories.

Homelands and Realms

 

I found myself reflecting on my own sense of home. My grandfather once dreamed of his Philippine village being completely demolished. He spoke of the province of his memory—crops, darkness, times when the villagers had to eat rats. My grandmother told stories that I barely understood, the characters of these tales now faint in my memory. I have never been to my mother’s province in the Philippines; I only know the relocation site near the city. I cannot speak Tagalog well, and Tagalog is not my mother’s dialect. Cantonese became my first language, my so-called mother tongue. My grandparents and my mother have spent most of their lives in Hong Kong. My grandparents’ and my parents’ provinces could not be a “home” or a “province” for me; these places live in their memories. Even though I would imagine them as they were described to me in stories, they would always be far away from my own lived experience. Looking at the familiar routes and buildings in Hong Kong where I have lived for so long—amid all the construction and demolitions in the city—I have often asked myself whether these places can be called a “province” or a “homeland” for me as everything is constantly changing. Or could there be a “鄉” — a “province” or “homeland” — for me at all? Where would this “homeland” be? While “鄉” can also signify an unreal, imagined realm—is the idea of “homeland” turning into a “realm” one longs for?

 

How might we talk about “homeland”? This question surfaces in the presentation of local perspectives to the world: How are they perceived, and how are they expected to be perceived? Through their works, internationally known Indonesian artists provide accessible entry points for foreign audiences, but they may also reinforce expectations shaped by global cultural consumption. As film and video absorb influences from the industry, contemporary art, and pop culture, how do we form our own visual languages? How do we resist dominant standards and learn to read the subtleties and fluidity of other cultural expressions—those that require patience, immersion, uncertainty, and perhaps a willingness to linger?

 

Some knowledge does not declare itself. It grows quietly, like wind shaping soil—an unspeakable essence at the heart of the vernacular.