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Astro-Archipelagos:
Outer Space imaginaries in Yogyakarta
With Irene Agrivina, House of Natural Fiber (HONF) in conversation with artists at Intercreate (Nina Czegledy, Trudy Lane, Kate Genevieve) for Cosmoimaginaries
Date: 25th April, 2024Online Meeting
In this session, artists from Aotearoa's Intercreate network speak with Irene Agrivina about her work with HONF, an arts, science, and technology laboratory based in Yogyakarta.
Open systems advocate, technologist, artist and educator, Irene Agrivina is one of the founding members and current directors of HONF - https://honf.org. Irene Agrivina presents her engagements with media art, cultural imaginaries, space and technology futures.
House of Natural Fiber (HONF) is an arts, science, and technology laboratory based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. HONF was established in 1998 as a response to the social and political turmoil against the nepotism and corruption prevalent during the Suharto authoritarian dictatorship in Indonesia. HONF’s creative collaborations with artists, scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists and communities aim to “understand the universe we are within, using both tools and ideas of science, and those of art.” Their long-running art science practice and transdisciplinary community engagement with cultural imaginaries of outer space, futures thinking and the search for life beyond earth radically refresh conversations around space exploration and and SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence).
Speculative creative work, and initiatives like the annual UFO festival, previously the ‘International SETI Conference’ of Yogyakarta, and ISSS (Indonesia Space Science Society) open alternative, imaginative frameworks for the exploration of space from the perspective of citizens.
This Cosmoimaginaries conversation is hosted with Intercreate Aotearoa, and artists Nina Czegledy, Trudy Lane and Kate Genevieve.
Cosmoimaginaries is a programme from the Astro Ecologies Institute: art, ecologies and technologies exploring relations between earth and outer space in the second space age.
Irene “Ira” Agrivina - Artist, technologist, and educator Irene Agrivina works at the intersection between art, science, and technology. A founding members and current co-director of House of Natural Fiber (HONF) in Yogyakarta, she is engaged in collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and multimedia actions responding to social, cultural, and environmental challenges. She co-founded XXLab in 2013, an all-female collective focusing on arts, science, free technology and open knowledge. Her projects have been presented internationally at IFVA New Media Art Festival, Hong Kong (2017); 5th Anyang Public Art Project, South Korea (2016); Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria (2015) and Pixelache Festival, Helsinki, Finland (2013) and recently as part of Singapore’s Art Science Gallery with HONF’s Galactica V.2 Dharma Garden, a reimagining of the goddess Lakshmi from Indian mythology as an otherworldly giver of nourishment and sustenance.
Nina Czegledy, artist, independent curator, researcher, educator, works internationally on collaborative art, science and technology projects. Paradigm shifts in the arts, science, educational issues and contemporary technologies inform her projects. She has exhibited and published widely, won awards for her artwork and has initiated, lead and participated in workshops, forums and festivals worldwide.https://www.ninaczegledy.net
Trudy Lane – Trudy Lane is an artist, ecologist and
co-chair of Intercreate Trust. Her Scottish forebears settled in Pūkorokoro, Aotearoa where she grew up on a farm with a beach paddock full of thousands of shorebirds. Design and digital art took her to the US and Croatia, working at the Walker Art Center and exhibiting collective artworks in Europe. Returning to Aotearoa, organising artist residencies and re-engaging with tāngata whenua (people of the land) and history led her to return to her rural home to nurture healing relationships and the conservation efforts of my ‘place to stand’. This has included supporting the work of the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre.
Since 2006, Intercreate have worked under the motto developing the culture to create a sustainable civilisation with communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a creative arts and culture organisation focused on Kaitiakitanga; integrating art, science, culture, and technology to tend to understanding and valuing ecologies and relations across the environment and across time.
Co-chaired by Jean Yern and Trudy Lane, Intercreate centres Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in activities, recognising the significant role of Māori and other Indigenous cultures across the planet in environmental stewardship and relational practices. The organisation's work includes transcultural, transdisciplinary and intergenerational collaborations, an international network connecting art, science, culture and technology, and specific community projects which encourage the public to engage creatively with the environment with an emphasis on long term systemic transformation as understood through te ao Māori (Māori worldview).
Christ, Venzha. Indonesia Space Science Society (ISSS). 2016. Mixed media installation. In NASA: A Human Adventure, ArtScience Museum, Singapore. https://www.marinabaysands.com/museum/exhibition-archive/nasa-a-human-adventure/indonesia-space-science-society.html
Genevieve, Kate, George Profitiliotis, Emily Finer, William Lempert, Chelsea Haramia, and John Elliott. “Plurality in Post Detection Scenarios.” Paper presented at the 75th International Astronautical Congress, Milan, Italy, October 14–18, 2024. https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/en/publications/plurality-in-post-detection-scenarios
House of Natural Fiber. Galactica V.2 Dharma Garden. 2023. Mixed media installation, commissioned by ArtScience Museum, Singapore. In New Eden: Science Fiction Mythologies Transformed, 2023–24. https://www.marinabaysands.com/museum/exhibitions/new-eden.html
House of Natural Fiber. Intelligent Bacteria – Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Transmediale installation, 2010.
https://transmediale.de/en/artwork/intelligent-bacteria-saccharomyces-cerevisiae
Huang, Hermes Taikan. Networks of Practice around Open Science: A Case Study on the House of Natural Fiber Foundation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Master’s thesis, Chulalongkorn University, 2014. https://digital.car.chula.ac.th/chulaetd/51818
Joo, Eungie. “The House of Natural Fiber.” Essay. Vera List Center for Art and Politics, 2017. https://www.veralistcenter.org/publications/the-house-of-natural-fiber
Jurriëns, Edwin. “Between Utopia and Real World: Indonesia’s Avant-Garde New Media Art.” Indonesia and the Malay World 41, no. 119, 2013: 48–75. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13639811.2012.750103
New Museum Digital Archive. “A Proposition by House of Natural Fiber: Intelligent Bacteria.” Public program, March 8–9, 2012. https://newmuseum.linkedbyair.net/public-programs/1467
v.u.f.o.c. “Indonesia UFO Festival 2024.” Official festival page. Yogyakarta, July 2nd - 30th, 2025. https://vufoc.space/indonesia-ufo-festival-2025
v.u.f.o.c. VMARS: v.u.f.o.c Mars Analogue Research Station. https://vufoc.space/vmars
Widyaningrum, Irene Agrivina, and Gilang Wahyu Apriliawan. “Menggabungkan Seni, Ilmu Pengetahuan, dan Teknologi: Eksplorasi HONF Terhadap Batas-batas Ekologi dan Ilmu Pengetahuan.” INVENSI: Jurnal Penciptaan dan Pengkajian Seni 9, no. 2 (2024): 178–188. https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/7017d0be-8fad-3fd5-9a0b-5b7f8577250b
Widyaningrum, Irene Agrivina, and Mohamad Haryo Hutomo. “Eksplorasi Pelestarian Pigmen Alami oleh HONF melalui Integrasi Seni, Sains, dan Teknologi.” Brikolase: Jurnal Kajian Teori, Praktik dan Wacana Seni Budaya Rupa 17, no. 1 (2025): 47–57. https://jurnal.isi-ska.ac.id/index.php/brikolase/article/view/7105
Wuschitz, Stefanie, and Astrid Reza. “Coded Feminisms in Indonesia.” Proceedings of Politics of the Machines, Rogue Research 3, 02021: 235–246. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362263274_Coded_Feminisms_in_Indonesia
XXLab of HONF. “Gender-Inclusive Making: XXLab @ HONF.” https://criticalmaking.eu/case-studies/gender-inclusive-making-xxlab-honf
Lunar Imaginaries meeting at Care + Climate, Rachel Blackman’s somatic Lunar Imagin