Every year, Studio Plesungan provides a recidency opportunity for the second year students of the Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at the NAFA-University of The Arts London program. This residency is a collaboration between Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Singapore to support students research for their thinking and making resources. Being in a unfamiliar environment than Singapore, the students are encourage to develop their core interest from being connected with rich cultural resources in Jawa, especially in Solo and around. This program is guided by Ms. Kimberly Shen (Lecturer) and Ms. Melati Suryodarmo (Adjuct Lecturer) of the Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at the NAFA – University of The Arts London program and the University of Arts Singapore.
In 2023, we host Kenenza MIchiko Hasan and Charlene Ramos as our art students in residency.
Kenenza Michiko Hasan was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and is currently based in Singapore. She graduated from NAFA with Diploma in Fine Arts in 2022 and as of now, she is pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art at the NAFA-University of The Arts London program. Her art practice revolves around navigating the culture, urban legends, and socio-political situations around the Southeast Asia region. Keeping and remembering her Indonesian roots, she is passionate about researching modern Indonesian History from 1960 – the present, especially in Jakarta, and taking that as a starting point for her works to uncover and discover new territories of a city. She uses maps, psychogeography, and working with organic materials primarily turmeric to activate different senses of the audience. Through her works, she hopes to bring a visceral sensation to the audience’s mind when experiencing the piece.
As the result of her residency at Studio Plesungan, Kenenza has published her writings on her experiences in Solo at her website. You may see her publication HERE.
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Charlene Andrea Ramos is in her second year pursuing my BA (Hons) in Fine Art, at Nanyang Academy of Fine Art – University of the Arts London. Her current art practice involves investigating the tensions of her lived experiences as a Third Culture Kid, being born in Singapore, growing up in America yet being a citizen of the Philippines despite not having lived there. The project she is proposing to do is an extension of the work she is currently working on while on exchange in London, a space she views as a means to help deconstruct the fragments of her cultural identity. Working around themes of cultural homelessness and living between worlds, it experiments with the use of a common spoken language across cultures and cultural signifiers.
Moving onto another unfamiliar environment fresh after London challenges to take this project further, viewing it through a new lens of a more-Eastern spectacle. She plans to do a video performance piece that uses language and text marked on the body, as a mode of story-telling. It directly references a sub-aspect to her work which explores the loss of the tradition, specifically Batok/Batik tattoos in the Philippines following the upsurge in Christianity in due to colonization. Batok is one of the traditional forms of expression of identity of indigenous tribes in the Philippines, which I will be re-appropriating and re-signifying with personal experiences of contemporary secularism.