We contacted Dina from Kunci Study Forum & Collective in January 2023. A month before then Dina as a representative from Kunci to participate in the Arts Collaboratory assembly in Mexico City, and that was how Macarena, one of our members, got to know Dina personally. At the time of our conversation, Dina was already back in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and was able to give us a ‘virtual tour’ of Kunci space. 

When we three finally logged on from different time zones, Dina popped up on our screens from Kunci’s library which was founded in 1999 and holds books of various disciplines from media, literature, politics, to art. She immediately and kindly gave us a virtual tour, walking around Kunci’s with her laptop’s camera towards the space around her.

“We call ourselves a cultural study center,” she described Kunci. Initially, it was located in the northern part of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where there are many universities, and in the fifth year, it moved towards the south. It was during this time that the library started obtaining more art books because of its encounters with other artistic groups and organizations in the area. Kunci allocates a special budget to purchase new books, the selection is often recommended by the members of the participants of the School of Improper Education, a project which will be mentioned later.

Although the library is open to the public at large, Dina says that it has mostly attracted university students and workers with no institutional access to university’s libraries. Although Kunci’s library may not be the most equipped with amenities, what it offers is an intimate atmosphere, and a community with hospitality. Aside from the library area, Kunci’s space also holds a printing area with a risograph machine, co-working space, kitchen, terrace, and, of course, hangout spaces. Even though Kunci offers printing services with the risograph machine to the public and other collectives, it is still not the cheapest option to print. So, it is during specific projects that it is used for further experimentation.

Dina chooses to call the space as “a big house,” an intermediary space between the public and private, personal and shared spaces. For example, on the one hand, the terrace is considered the most open area, where members would usually receive those who may not be familiar to Kunci, but it is also an area where they keep their motocycles. On the other hand, the most personal area would be the kitchen where friends and colleagues share meals. Perhaps, the most in-between space would be the library, where members receive those who visit Kunci for the first time and also where members stay to work on their projects.

Who is considered your community?

Dina says that Kunci is a collective of about 10 people, and is in itself a community because there is a strong sense of belonging. It is not only a working space, but also a supportive system. However, she also sees Kunci as an institution. From this point of view, to Dina, Kunci’s direct community is the art community, with neighbors from the universities and the activists’ circles.

Being part of Arts Collaboratory

Starting from 2016, Kunci became a member of Arts Collaboratory (AC), “a translocal ecosystem consisting of 25 diverse organizations around the world focused on art practices, processes of social change, and working with broader communities beyond the field of art.” From 2016-2020, Kunci has received institutional and financial support from AC, and was able to restructure its way of working. Instead of working on small projects depending on the availability of funding, Kunci was able to engage in more long-term projects. One of those projects is the School of Improper Education (Sekolah Salah Didik), a platform that challenges the conventional approach to schooling. Kunci invited people of any discipline and background to study and construct pedagogical methods collectively. During this program, participants can propose topics, do field work, produce publications, and public programs. The invitation was through open calls. Initially there were 3 each year, but realizing that it was too ambitious and fast-paced, Kunci is now looking at 2 open calls each year. Each semester lasts 1-2 months.

Didik: dissidence and education in the context of Indonesia

The Indonesian name of School of Improper Education is actually Sekolah Salah Didik. ‘Didik’ means to educate. The full name is adapted from a popular novel called salah asuhan (translated to ‘miseducated). In this popular novel that is also a compulsory reading in schools, the protagonist is considered too Western to the native Indonesians, but too backwards to the colonial Dutch. He does not belong anywhere. Nevertheless, as Dina commented, Kunci did not identify much with the novel because it is coming from a male perspective, they still borrow the title because of its place in popular culture.

The project aimed to challenge the school as a place to be disciplined as often is dictated by a colonial point of view. Instead, it can be a place of experimentation that is grounded in the socio-political context of the times, a place to reflect upon the past, and imagine the future. It is a place that welcomes subjective feelings, affects, and experimentation.

Dina said, “We want to facilitate other ways of knowing, and knowledge production. The school should be different as well. The system in Indonesia, where dominant values are inserted to us. We are not telling what we need to learn, but we create the conditions for learning. Nurture. This is our way of activism, creating structures/conditions that are radically different and necessary to have in the present context. Colonial education is to make obedient subjects. We are inspired by the ‘wild schools’ taught by natives using other languages during the Dutch colonial era. Not oriented towards creating bureaucrats, but towards liberation.”

If you consider Kunci as an institution, what is an institution to you?

To conclude our conversation, we asked Dina the question above. Institution now has a negative connotation, whether rightly so or not is up for debate, but here is Dina’s reflection: “I think of institutions as a body. network of organs. What consists of an institution is an entity that creates a container for something. Vessel. Container. Directing and making things flow like resources and information. Formal-Informal are conditions for institutions. All kinds of institutions on the spectrum of formal-informal.”