ROOM 1 / RUANG 1 - Artist Exchange: The Background Of WANUA: Beyond Home - Apa ruang favoritmu di Rumah?
Beyond Walls and MIWF invited 8 artists from Makassar, Ambon, and the Netherlands to co-create and reflect on the meaning of Wanua. The journey began with a residency in Amsterdam and Rotterdam (April 2025), where the artists explored oral histories, colonial archives, and local heritage.
Artists, researchers and storytellers Theoresia Rumthe, Djé-Rimo, Safa Liron, Hirah Sanada, Rachmat Mustamin, Tiga Batang Rumah, and Louie Buana came together to explore WANUA as community, place, and the living relationship between people and environment.
The idea of ‘home’ played a central role in their conversations and collaborations. In this room, the artists share personal reflections on what home means to them, through intimate memories, stories, and spatial connections about their favorite space in their homes.
Below, you’ll find translations of their texts in Bahasa Indonesia and English.
“When someone opens their door, we can see their living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, these are metaphorically speaking for exchanging vulnerability. We can see the inside of someone’s body - the sense of family - the sense of home - that, I believe, came very naturally at our first encounter.
So Wanua: Beyond Home is a natural, intellectual, and artistic theme to articulate what is inside all of us.”
TRANSLATION ENGLISH - BAHASA INDONESIA ROOM 1 / RUANG 1
Fort Rotterdam: Reimagined Archives
In this room, WANUA artist Rachmat Mustamin collaborates with Makassar-based visual artist Jasmin Ansar to reimagine Dutch colonial archives of Fort Rotterdam, spanning from the early 20th century to the 1970s. Using footage from Beeld & Geluid (The Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision), they layer the colonial gaze with Bugis-inspired visual interventions, reclaiming space, memory, and narrative through art.
Since this exchange week, the artists have been inspired and are working on something that comes to life at Fort Rotterdam during the Makassar International Writers Festival:
WANUA: Beyond Home.
Curious? Visit Building C, in Fort Rotterdam, Makassar from May 29 to June 1 and follow us via @makassarwriters and @beyondwallscollective.
In April 2025, the artists experienced a full week of lectures, workshops, inspiration sessions, and moments of contemplation, creation, and participatory exchange in Amsterdam, Leiden, Vught, Eindhoven, and Rotterdam.
They uncovered historical and contemporary connections between Fort Rotterdam, Makassar, and Ambon. Explored the deep-rooted kinship between South Sulawesi and Maluku through talks and interactive lectures by Dr. Tamara Soukotta, historian Drs. Wim Manuhutu, and researcher, PhD candidate, and storyteller Louie Buana. This was enriched by diving into the archives of the Nieuwe Instituut and University Leiden, and, of course, through the kitchens of the Bugis, Makassar, and Maluku communities, where they shared meals like kapurung and papeda, lovingly prepared by Azmah Musa.
Meet the artists.
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Hirah Sanada is a multidisciplinary artist from Makassar, South-Sulawesi, known for her music, violin performances, and art illustrations. She began her artistic journey in 2019 with the release of her debut song "Berpindah" and has since performed her progressive music on various stages. Hirah's visual art career began in 2020 with her first solo exhibition, followed by an art residency at the Makassar Biennale in 2021. In addition to her music, Hirah also expanded her work into visual arts as an illustrator, collaborating on various projects. Her interest in combining her writing and painting brought her to her first art residency at the Makassar Biennale (2021) by visualizing one of her mother’s love languages throughout Hirah’s life: alternative medicine using natural ingredients (turmeric, charcoal, rice flour, miana leaves, and garlic skin) and adapted the work into songwriting titled “Mantra”.
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Djé-Rimo Holle is a versatile writer, performer, and spoken word artist. With his powerful performances and storytelling, he appears on stages throughout the Netherlands. He has previously performed at Mensen Zeggen Dingen (People Say Things), North Sea Jazz, and was part of the sixth season of Spoken Word Sessies broadcasted by Omroep Human. In 2023, he was involved as a curator in the exhibition Wie zegt dat? (Says Who?) at Museum Van Loon in Amsterdam, where two of his poems were also showcased. He is also known as a regular radio columnist for the program Met Mandy! on Omroep ZWART, broadcasted on NPO Radio 1. His debut poetry book, Vuurvlieg (Firefly), is an important new addition to Dutch literature.
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Theoresia Rumthe is a writer and poet born in Ambon, Maluku. After spending over a decade in the city of Bandung, she has now returned and settled in the city of Ambon. She writes poetry, teaches public speaking, creates music stages with Rempah Gunung, Aroma Dendang Sahaja, and manages Ruang Sajange in the yard beside her house for literary discussions. Together with her team, she manages Jazirah—Timur Labuhan Kata, the literary culture festival of the city of Ambon. Her poetry book, Kadang Rumah Tak Memberimu Pulang (Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2023), was nominated for the top 5 in Tempo's Selected Literary Books and for the 2024 Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Literary Award in the Poetry Collection category.
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Rachmat Mustamin is a writer, visual artist and cultural activist based in Makassar, South-Sulawesi. In 2024, he published his poetry book Indeks Penghabisan Manusia (For Your Poetry) that merges language, photography, and design to explore urban life, identity, and generational tensions. In 2019, Rachmat participated in a residency program in Germany, sponsored by the National Book Committee. He received the Connections Through Culture (2020) grant from the British Council, collaborating with Indonesian and British artists. His play, The Sketches in Heritage Gardens, won the Rawayan Award from the Jakarta Arts Council in 2022. He directed the video art installation Patience (2023), an interpretation of poems by the iconic Indonesian poet Chairil Anwar. His latest work is a cross-media performance titled Batang-Batang Rupama (2024), which explores the stories of the roads and the lives of Makassar's suburban residents.
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Tiga Batang Rumah is a tifa group of three Moluccan women from the third and fourth generations of Moluccans in the Netherlands. Tiga Batang Rumah are heritage storytellers who bring to life the narratives and sounds of the Moluccan tifa and oral traditions—an essential link in making locally and regionally rooted forms of storytelling visible and tangible, beyond dominant Eurocentric traditions. They are passionately and determinedly dedicated to preserving the tifa drumming tradition, an important part of Moluccan cultural heritage. Performing tifa is a way to keep the rich history and connection to their ancestors alive. The women, raised in the Netherlands, have inherited the value of their culture through generations and are striving to pass this on to their children and the wider community. They have not only learned to play the tifa but have also understood its significance and now wish to share it with others to protect it from being lost. They see it as a means to strengthen the identity of the Moluccan community, especially in a time when many traditional heritage practices are at risk of disappearing.
(Photo credits: Nathalie Tamaela)
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Safa Liron is an all-around artist: singer, songwriter, producer, and musician. Growing up in a musically rich Moluccan-Surinamese family, she taught herself to play multiple instruments, drawing inspiration from genres like metal-rock, soul, and R&B. Her music is influenced by icons such as Erykah Badu, Sade, and Amy Winehouse. Her career began in her own room, recording songs and covers, eventually gaining recognition on YouTube. This led to mentorship by Willem de Bruin (The Opposites) and Winston Bergwijn (Winne), as well as management by Nathan Moszkowicz. She collaborated with Candy Dulfer and amassed millions of streams, with airplay on FunX, Sublime, and BBC Radio. In 2022, she founded Studio HARIA in Rotterdam—a music studio where artists not only record music but also develop their identity and artistic vision. Safa guides them in songwriting, production, vocal techniques, and storytelling, aiming to break barriers as an independent artist and female producer. For WANUA, she will draw on her skills as a producer to translate poetry and spoken word into immersive storytelling soundscapes.
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Louie Buana is a writer, heritage storyteller, PhD candidate at the Institute for History at Leiden University and a visiting researcher at the KITLV (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies). He studied law and colonial history, with a focus on adat (customary law), maritime networks, and the interplay between Islam and colonialism in South Sulawesi. His research centers on precolonial storytelling, language, and heritage traditions in the region. As a writer and heritage storyteller and founder of the Lontara Project, he is dedicated to preserving La Galigo—the world’s longest Buginese literary epic and part of UNESCO’s Memory of the World—and making it accessible to younger generations through new media. He also advocates for greater recognition of oral traditions and storytelling as valuable sources of knowledge within academia and literature. In WANUA Louie will share his storytelling knowledge with the artists and write literary reflections inspired by the La Galigo.
