Join Gapura and Brian Arnold on an evening of photography and stories as we discuss A History of Photography in Indonesia: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age. Edited by Brian Arnold. Eleven years in the making with contributors from Indonesia, Canada, and Europe, this is the first book that pulls together the four largest archives of Indonesian photographs. A very richly illustrated book, and the first of its kind.
The Book
As a former colonized nation, Indonesia has a unique place in the history of photography. A History of Photography in Indonesia: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age looks at the development of photography from the beginning and traces its uses in Indonesia from its invention to the present day. The Dutch colonial government first brought the medium to the East Indies in the 1840s and immediately recognized its potential in serving the colonial apparatus. As the country grew and changed, so too did the medium. Photography was not only an essential tool of colonialism, but it also became part of the movement for independence, a voice for reformasi, an agent for advocating democracy, and is now available to anyone with a phone. This book gathers essays by leading artists, scholars, and curators from around the world who have worked with photography in Indonesia and have traced the evolution of the medium from its inception to the present day, addressing the impact of photography on colonialism, independence, and democratization.
About Brian
Brian Arnold is a photographer, educator, and musician based in Ithaca, NY. He has undergraduate degrees in English and Ethnomusicology from The Colorado College, and an MFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art. His photographs have been exhibited in China, France, Indonesia, Italy, and the United States, and are included in a number of important museum and library collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the George Eastman House in Rochester, the library at The Cleveland Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, the National Gallery of Australia, the Indonesian Visual Arts Archive, and Light Work in Syracuse, NY. He has received a number of important grants and residencies, most recently from MacDowell, the Cite Internationale Des Arts in Paris, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the American Institute for Indonesian Studies. Brian has taught and lectured about photography at a number of prestigious institutions in the United States and abroad - including at Cornell University; the School of Art and Design at Alfred University; Massachusetts College of Art; the Santa Reparata International College of Art in Florence, Italy, Pasundan University in Bandung, West Java; the Institute of Technology in Bandung; the University of Indonesia; the Indonesian Institute of Art, Yogyakarta; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the School for International Training, the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia; and the Beijing Film Academy.
About Gapura
We are a non-profit organization with a mission to ho honor traditions, empower the community, and discover dreams within and through the Indonesian-American community in Philadelphia. At Gapura, we hope to serve, as our name suggests, as a gate to and for the Indonesian community in Philadelphia - linking past, present, and future through economic, social, and cultural empowerment. We also hope to bridge the physical distance between Indonesia and the Philadelphia Indonesian community through our programs and initiatives.