⋆ ⁺₊⋆
Astro-Archipelago:
Outer Space imaginaries in Yogyakarta
With Irene Agrivina, HONF
Date: 25th April, 2024Online Meeting
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 HONF’s engagements with cultural imaginaries, space futures and SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence).
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 engagement with cultural imaginaries of outer space and the search for life beyond earth radically refresh conversations around space exploration. HONF creates alternative, imaginative, fresh frameworks for the exploration of space from the perspective of citizens through visionary science art, and through public initiatives like ISSS – Indonesia Space Science Society - and their annual UFO festival, previously named the ‘International SETI Conference’ of Yogyakarta.
This dialogue is hosted for Cosmoimaginaries by Nina Czegledy with Intercreate Aotearoa.
Cosmoimaginaries is an experimental practice and knowledge sharing programme, focused on ecological and cosmic imaginaries in relation to ecological thinking and planetary activism.
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.
Indigenous Studies Working Group Statement Atalay, Lempert, Shorter, and TallBear (2021) American Indian Culture and Research Journal
Daniela de Paulis, A Sign in Space
Daniela de Paulis, The Metamorphosis
of a Periplaneta Americana
The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space ed. Juan Francisco Salazar, Alice Gorman (2023) Routledge
Salazar, Juan Francisco and Castaño, Paola (2022). Framing the Futures of Australia in Space: Insights from Key Stakeholders. Parramatta, Sydney: Institute for Culture and Society, Sestern Sydney University
Olson, Valerie A. (2023). Refielding in More-Than-Terran Spaces in The Routledge Handbook of Social Studies of Outer Space ed. Juan Francisco Salazar, Alice Gorman (2023) Routledge
Lunar Imaginaries meeting at Care + Climate, Rachel Blackman’s somatic Lunar Imagin