ARIF SETIAWAN is a director, script writer and also an actor who lives in Pontianak, usually called ‘Aib’. He is active in the theater scene in Pontianak and teaches at the Sanggar Teater Linka SMAN 1 Pontianak and is a management member in the Jaya Abadi Makmur Bersama Theater Group. He was involved in the Theater Parade 2010, and was also active in the West Kalimantan Theater Society Forum. His latest script he worked on, The Last Species on Earth, removed the boundary between stage-audience-actor into an interesting interactive performance. This performance invites us to think about gravity and the size of “sin”, putting us in dilemmatic situations where awareness-conscience and reality-pragmatic are at the crossroads.

During the Rhizomatic Archipelago 2019 program, which collaborated with the Biennale Equator, Aib was a participant of the Kelana Laut Residency, where he spent 1 month in the fishing village of Pambusuang Village, in Poliwali-Mandar, West Sulawesi. During his residency he was very interested in the practice of Passauq Wai or (Water Bucket?). This practice is a hereditary practice that is usually done by women. They take water on the banks of sands of the Mandar River, put it in dozens of plastic jerrycans and swim and pull it for sale or use it personally. Passauq Wai is still the backbone of water supply in a number of areas in Mandar because adequate infrastructure is not yet built. For the Jogja Biennale, Aib will present the installations and performances that will illustrate the practice of Passauq Wai by these Mandar women.

CUT PUTRI AYASOFIA is a comic artist (manga genre) who lives and works in Aceh. In the Rhizomatic Archipelago X Kelana Residency Program, which is organized in collaboration between Cemeti – the Institute for Arts and Society and the Biennale Jogja 2019 Equator XV, Cut develops her work related to issues of parenting and children’s education, and criticizes formal education models that also demonstrate educational capitalism. During the residency process in Jogja in July 2019, Cut Putri visited several alternative schools and then chose Akar Rumput School, Yogyakarta as a collaborative partner.

FERIAL AFIFF is a flexible artist who has been actively working for more than 10 years. She currently lives in Yogyakarta. The pattern of her work has no boundaries or specific styles, artistically she often switches roles as facilitator / curator / writer / researcher / producer / etc. Shee is always curious. relate to other people and living conditions that accompanied her, especially environmental / gender / historical themes. Her work was presented in various cities in Indonesia and other countries such as: Singapore, Myanmar, Japan, South Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Switzerland, etc., Ferial ,since 2012, has been a member of Lifepatch, an initiation of people in art-science-technology . Since 2018 together with Putri Wartawati, Ridwan Rau Rau, and the Lingkar Semanggi Foundation (Tangerang) initiated the Expedition Camp, a biennial meeting and sharing forum for performance practitioners throughout Asia.

While exploring East Sumatra in the Kelana and Rhizomatic Archipelago residency program, Ferial was interested in investigating the narration of unknown female heroes or figures, beside the main narration in history. Searching for their history is done by visiting the site, digging up archives, meeting sources and exploring stories that seem to blend myths and history. Ferial then worked with women artists from a younger generation to portray the image of this woman’s face through the stories she presented. Her personal exploration then developed into a collective effort to evoke a forgotten history.

IPEH NUR lives and works in Yogyakarta. She graduated from the Graphic Arts Department, Indonesian Art Institute. Most of her works are black and white illustrations on paper. Ipeh also works by using techniques and other media, such as screen printing, etching, murals, and sculpture from resin. Ipeh participated in various group exhibitions, including 80 nan Ampuh, Bentara Budaya Yogyakarta (2019), Waktu dan Ingatan Tak Pernah Diam, IVAA, Yogyakarta, Pressing Matters, Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2018), Beyond Masculinity, Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta (2017 ), and The 1st Jogja Miniprint Biennale, Museum of Bank Indonesia Yogyakarta and Mien Gallery, Yogyakarta (2014). In 2018, Ipeh held two solo exhibitions each titled Salimah at REDBASE and Banda at Kedai Kebun Forum.

In the Rhizomatic Archipelago 2019 program (in collaborated with the Biennale Equator), Ipeh had the opportunity to participate in the Kelana Laut Residence Program in Pambusuang Village, Polewali-Mandar Regency, West Sulawesi. During the residency process, Ipeh examined the traditions or rites of the people related to the sea. Belief in the occult / mystical, palace of the sea, sea ghosts, the Prophet Khidir as the ruler of the sea, and pemali become a form of respect as well as an effort to protect the sea which is the source of livelihood. Various types of rites and traditions are passed down from generation to generation, including rites in treating the products or technologies they create, in this case houses and boats. Houses and boats are believed to have a spirit or soul symbolized by posiq (navel). In making a boat, for example, a shaman boat will be invited to do the mapposiq ritual (giving a navel). The navel on the boat presupposes a hope of salvation and abundance of fortune while at sea. Likewise navel house (posiq ball), which became a place of ritual to ask for safety and blessing for their relatives who were at sea. The findings during the residency process were reprocessed by Ipeh by giving new interpretations of what she learned in Pambusuang.

RAHMADIYAH TRIA GAYATHRI was born in Palu on 11 June 1992. Worked as a cross-media artist, activist, disaster literacy activist. Founder of the Sudut Pandang Collective Forum based in Palu. Actively involved as an initiator in the collective work of the film, music, art and media community in Palu. Ama, as she is familiarly called, also does many collaborative art projects both with her colleagues from Sudut Pandang Collective Forum and with other collectives. In addition, Ama is also involved in film production in Palu, especially as a producer. One of the films she produced was Mountain Song produced by Four Colors Films which was recently awarded at the Asia New Talent Award, the 2019 Shanghai International Film Festival.

SUVI WAHYUDIANTO is a young artist from Madura who now lives and works in Yogyakarta. After earning his bachelor degree from the Department of Fine Arts Education, Faculty of Language and Art, Surabaya State University in 2017, Suvi later won the UOB Painting of the Year 2018 award at the national (Indonesian) and international (Southeast Asian) level for his work entitled Angs’t, a mixed media work that abstractly articulates the concept of empathy in order to respond to personal experiences and collective memories of social conflict.

Suvi’s artistic practice includes exploring visual language through poetic approaches to expand the possibility of interpretations of tragic events related to socio-cultural tensions in the past and present, as well as parsing issues related to identity politics. Through textual studies and participatory historical studies, as well as the elaboration of the autoetnographic approach into the realm of art, Suvi focus on creating the work that try to unpack new narration as a counterpoint to mainstream narration, in their efforts to deconstruct the discourse of violent conflict that has been rolling in society, and encouraging ideas of reconciliation and raising empathic awareness in post-conflict situations. The poetic exploration is often translated into various techniques of creating and processing the medium, with a variety of results from painting, installation of objects, to text-based works. One of his most recent works, Catatan Hari Berkabung, and Satu Mata Sapi yang Menyedihkan (2019), was created based on the results of his research while undergoing the Rhizomatic X Kelana residency program in West Kalimantan. Presented at the Jogja National Museum for the Biennale Jogja XV – Equator #5, 2019, the work frames a number of narrations that he collected while interacting with people in Pontianak, Singkawang, Sintang, and Sambas; This work presents a critical reading of collective memory map that still exist between generations, in connection with experiences of violence that had occurred in these cities.

SYAMSUL ARIFIN from Sampang, Madura, is a performer who moves on the performance stage. Since 2016 Syamsul has been actively producing works in various regions; Jakarta, Jombang, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and others. One of his works is entitled Sapamêngkang which was once staged at the Teater Garasi Studio, Yogyakarta.

TAJRIANI THALIB received her bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Psychology, Makassar State University. Tajriani lives and works in Polewali Mandar, West Sulawesi. She is active as a performer, especially in traditional art performances. Tajriani performed, among others, at the Wonderful Indonesia Festival, Bangkok, Thailand (2017) and The 3rd Erau International Folks Arts Festival (EIFAF), Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan (2013). She is also involved in social projects, for example with the Sipatokkong Community which focuses on assisting children with special needs and with the Armada Pustaka Mandar, a mobile library community that bring literature to various regions in West Sulawesi.

Tajriani is one of three artists who participated in the residency program of Kelana Sungai and Rhizomatic Archipelago in West Kalimantan. During the residency process, Tajriani conducted research on the story of the rice goddess in the Dayak community belief system. Similar stories can be found in various places in the archipelago, including in the Mandar region, and each region has a different type of story or speech style. Tajriani retells the story of the rice goddess in song, combining it with Mandar-style speech style: toloq. Toloq, in the Mandar society, is the art of speech to tell a story. She then used the principle of the Mandar toloq to retell the story of the origins of rice according to the Dayak society.