Collaborative Art Residency Programmes as Platforms for Decolonial Practices and Knowledge Production

Paper Abstract: The debate on restitution and practices of decolonizing museums has gained a lot of attention both in the academia and the cultural sector over the past few years. This paper turns towards other efforts in confronting colonial legacies through alternative forms of instituting and knowledge production, using the KITLV-Framer Framed artist in residency programme as a case study. This collaborative infrastructure is jointly organised by Framer Framed, a community-oriented art space in Amsterdam, and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, a national archive in Leiden. Unlike anthropological and art museums, which grapple with the politics of restitution, provenance research, collection management and exhibition curation, this project works with Indonesia artist, activists, and researchers to collectively cultivate sensorial and embodied experiences designed for a broader public, all while fostering a heightened awareness of the contemporary (post)colonial realities in specific local contexts within a global framework. The study proposes collaborative art residency programmes as an affirmative practice in opening institutional borders, destabilizing hegemonic infrastructures, undermining (Western) canonized knowledge systems, and demonstrating their potential to serve as platforms for civic engagement and participation. In doing so, these programs hold the promise of contributing to the reclamation of decolonial futures.