Discovering Indonesian-Dutch connection through poetry

Robin Block and Angelina Enny have co-written a poetry collection about shared Dutch-Indonesian history. Before the Dutch colonial era ended in the 1940s, Indonesians and Dutch settlers lived alongside each other for hundreds of years. Yet how much do Indonesians and Dutch people really know about each other, especially about their shared history? In an effort to provide fertile creative ground for writers and artists from both countries, the Salihara cultural center in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, collaborated with the Dutch Culture and Indisch Herinneringscentrum to allow six Indonesian artists and their six Dutch counterparts to work together for several months. The fruits of these encounters provided the material for the cultural center’s 2019 Literature and Ideas Festival (LIFE), which they organized from Oct. 12 to 20.