Artist talk: Tita Salina & Irwan Ahmett (ID)

EPT on the road 2:
HAPPY POTLUCK STUDIO

Tuesday, June 21, 6:00 - 9:00pm
DCR Guest Studios (guest studio 3)

Please meet Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina for their talk HAPPY POTLUCK STUDIO (and please bring something to eat and/or drink)!

Electric Palm Tree on the road is a series of irregular meetings that seize the opportunity of surprise visits by traveling artists and cultural producers to host an informal occasion for exchange. We thought this might be a good way to have access to and learn from —to a Western European eye— unfamiliar contexts and find a common ground with artists, designers and other practitioners. Electric Palm Tree is a long-term project/platform/community that deals with the politics of culture and issue of co-existence–and difference–in the current global society.

EPT on the road’s second meeting takes place on Tuesday, June 21, 6:00 - 9:00pm at DCR Guest Studios, De Constrant Rebecqueplein 20B, The Hague

In The Hague, we will be meeting Jakarta based designer and artist Irwan Ahmett together with his partner; designer Tita Salina. Together, they will open the doors to their temporary studio to share their ongoing research into the notion of “happiness”. Whilst one could argue that it is not an appropriate concept, as it is intertwined with commercialization and has been thoroughly commodified, it seemingly works as a means to measure the quality of life, certainly in Indonesia. This word may also be a synonym for “agency”–individual and collective-, a state of being that is (stereo) typically sought for in the “West” and exploited by free market economies.

Irwan Ahmett has been analysing and discovering the value and meaning of “happiness” in Jakarta and elsewhere, especially with the playful methods of organizing collective actions in the middle of the city. Irwan and Tita have taken up a three-month residency period at DCR Guest Studio in The Hague and now extend their investigation to a different urban context. The residency makes for the couple’s longest period away from their home city and Jakarta based graphic design studio. Irwan and Tita’s research began by asking themselves the following questions: “Are we happy here? How do we distribute and share our happiness? Where is the spot of unhappiness? What happens to the, very human, fluctuations of individual emotions? In what ways do the visual experiences and the flow of information in this new cultural environment affect our emotions?”

For more information on Irwan Ahmett’s practice please visit http://www.irwanahmett.com/.

Care to join us at Irwan and Tita’s HAPPY POTLUCK STUDIO? Please send an email to info@electricpalmtree.org and permataspsalina@gmail.com or RSVP to this event. As it is a potluck party, let us know what kind of food and/or drinks you plan to bring to the table so we can make sure there is enough for everyone.

For more information on Electric Palm Tree visit www.electricpalmtree.org.

We warmly welcome you to dinner!