Udeido: strategically amplifying disruptive Papuan narratives in Indonesia’s art centre

In 2021, the Biennale Jogja turned its vision eastward. Among the artists chosen from eastern Indonesia and Oceania, the Udeido collective (artists and intellectuals from West Papua, now based in Yogyakarta) garnered a great deal of attention. Through their installations, the group repositioned deceased Papuan leaders within a local mythology that prophesises a redemptive saviour and a promised land (Koreri), fusing folk tales from West Papua’s Biak region with imagery drawing on cultural sources ranging from poster art to bark painting, and the kind of phallic appropriation familiar from the (Euro-American) feminist avant-garde of 1970s. While much attention has focused on the subversive nature of exhibiting such overt critiques of Indonesian militarism, toxic masculinity and human rights, less has been paid to Udeido’s tight-rope walk between cultural revivalism, strategic essentialism and tentative assimilation. This extraordinary balancing act peaked in late 2022 when Udeido spokesman Dicky Takndare demanded that discourse and curriculum on curatorial practice in Indonesia attend to the stories of those cultural workers, whose contributions have largely been ignored. This paper will investigate the conception, negotiation and creation of the Koreri Projection, and the creative process behind this work that simultaneously projects a vibrant connection to ancestral traditions, bears witness to ongoing atrocities and proposes future common ground through contemporary art.