DEBORAH KELLY | ARTIST

At the invitation of curator Herra Pahlasari and with the support of Natasha Siddarta, I travelled to Bandung in Java to collaborate with young artist collective Wayang Cyber2 and the Siliwangi Bridge village, threatened with total redevelopment.

Wayang Cyber and I organised a series of self-portrait based collage workshops with villagers to facilitate self-representation and build creative collaboration skills. Village leaders proposed to exceed the portrait plan by making large-scaled collage artwork on the walls of their entire settlement, to rename the community ‘Kampung Kolase’ (Collage Village) and to thereby claim visibility and political presence inside the rhetoric of Bandung’s aspirations to ‘Creative City’ status. It was an honour to assist villagers from every generation to implement their powerful strategic idea.