Talks by Sabine Groenewegen & Riar Rizaldi : Gender, Colonialism, Ecology (with KITLV)
Schedule
Thu May 11 2023 at 03:00 pm
Location
KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies | Leiden, ZH
Advertisement
Event DescriptionThe event features two talks, by artists Sabine Groenewegen and Riar Rizaldi in which they will discuss their current research on questions of gender, colonialism and econology.
In her project Missing Scenes, artist filmmaker Sabine Groenewegen explores omitted histories of women on rubber plantations in the colonial plantation belt in Sumatra (Indonesia) in the early twentieth century. The work was prompted by her discovery of the removal of a female character (actress Amsy Moina) from the 1930’s Dutch film set Rubber on a colonial rubber plantation in Sumatra. The unexplained removal of the scenes left only a damaged nitrate film print as a material witness. Her investigation opened up to a layering of historical silences related to women and profit models within the system of rubber production in the early 20th century.
Resulting in both a feature length film and installation work, Missing Scenes draws from different archival materials to interrogate Dutch narratives which shaped colonial fantasies, erased realities of extractivism and rendered gendered violence invisible throughout generations. Centered as a demonstrable missing element in Dutch film history, the omitted scenes function as a starting point for a reflection on power, historiography, narrative distortion, erasure, and repair.
Sabine’s work questions the omission and representation of a hidden history, the visible and invisible, and how this is connected to what we do and do not remember today. It proposes re-contextualization and attention to that which has been imagined, hidden and lost from official records. An outline emerges of the intergenerational consequences of rubber production in the Dutch East Indies, reflecting on power, extraction, and how we may connect to muted histories
Still from the project Missing Scences (Sabine Groenewegen)
Riar Rizaldi, in his presentation, will discuss the background of his film projects including the Earth science trilogy Kasiterit, Tellurian Drama, Becquerel, as well as the upcoming feature-film Monisme. Rizaldi’s interest in worldviews, science-fiction, moving images, geophysics, and magic informed the making and thinking of these projects, which explore the social, political, and ecological situation of the landscape and geological formation where the films are set. These projects utilize various methods of moving image production, such as working with archival materials, observational footage, collaborative filmmaking, and computer graphic animation. With a particular focus on the cartography and geography of the Indonesian archipelago, the projects aim to rethink the dynamic relationship between humans and their surrounding landscape.” Links to the films that will be discussed: Kasiterit, Tellurian Drama, Becquerel, Monisme.
Advertisement
Where is it happening?
KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Reuvensplaats 2, Leiden, NetherlandsEvent Location & Nearby Stays: