Co-Speaking Programme: filmscreening Dispereert Niet & talks with Indonesian Migrant Workers Union

In collaboration with the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union, Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina made a documentary video project about undocumented Indonesian migrant workers in Holland. The goal is to give insight of how the migrations happen, beginning with simpler motivations in Indonesia to the complexity of the current issue, and the challenges immigrants face living in a new country and climate.

Event is part of the Co-Speaking programme under the project YOU MUST MAKE YOUR DEATH PUBLIC, part of the larger project Untitled (two takes on crisis), which takes place at de Appel arts centre, the from 23rd of April to the 12th of June, 2016. It is an initiative of the 2015-16 Curatorial Programme of de Appel arts centre.

More information about Co-Speaking Programme:

Entrance
Entrance regular + 3 euro
A combiticket is available for 15 euro (excluding the entrance to the exhibition). This combiticket gives entrance to all the events related to Untitled (two takes on crisis).

In the process of making the film Irwan and Tita sought information from diverse groups - , activists, politicians, artists, historians, the Indonesian government and related groups to find answers to this problematic migrant issue in an attempt to analyse the contemporary urgencies. To be able to see the real situation and to build trust, they lived in undocumented migrant’s houses for four weeks. Irwan and Tita record their daily life, felt their worries and sacrifices, saw their invisible life, adaptation, unmatched dreams and learnt their collective struggle to voice their rights in the Netherlands.

For them this project feels like opening a Pandora’s box, it could touch the deepest humanity in relation to criminal agents, the threat of migration, human trafficking, historical ties and the dark residue of colonialism. This documentary is positioned as an intervention. It is aimed at building dialogs, bridging differences and increasing awareness.

Indonesian Migrant Workers Union NL
The Indonesian Migrant Workers Union in the Netherlands (IMWU NL) is a self-organised entity, established by and for Indonesian Migrant Workers in the Netherlands. IMWU NL is aimed to promote the labour rights for all workers and particularly for Indonesian workers, both documented and undocumented, in the Netherlands. They are determined to eliminate human trafficking, jobs trade, workplace abuse and various other forms of workers rights violations and discrimination against all workers, but particularly Indonesian workers in the Netherlands.

Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina
Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina are an artist duo from Jakarta. Their tactical, interventionist approach is developed in response to living in a megacity of 15 million people, and amid large-scale contemporary political power struggles. They frequently deal with social issues in public space, translating them into spontaneously unfolding events. The lack of institutional support in Indonesia has encouraged a self-
organised and collective spirit. The paradoxical situation and problems are strategically responded to within a universal currency of ‘playfulness’, which is understood as having imaginative capacity to generate critical alternatives to these complicated issues.