Screening and Conversation with Jeffry Pondaag

PUBLIC EVENT | June 1st 2024 | 13:00 - 16:30 | WERELDMUSEUM ROTTERDAM

Please join us on this special occasion for the screening of Moeder Dao, De Schildpadgelijkende (Vincent Monnikendam, 1995), which will be followed by a conversation between Jeffry Pondaag and Wayne Modest.

The film and conversation will be held in Dutch.

Photo source: Eye Filmmuseum

Summary

In recent years, an increased multivocality has marked how the colonial past has been addressed, following from various appeals that argued that the colonial narratives used in institutions need serious scrutiny. To be sure, this multivocality has produced important shifts in the ways histories of colonialism and its afterlives are told, including in museums. Within the last few years, several museums have addressed the Dutch colonial project in Indonesia, suggesting that they hereby give a voice or platform to Indonesian people to tell their the story from their own perspectives.

In this conversation, Jeffry Pondaag challenges the idea that “the Indonesian perspective” has indeed been presented, asking us to consider where the Indonesian perspective might be found and who has the authority to speak about it. These are some of the questions that will be addressed in the event and the conversation between Pondaag and Wayne Modest.

Program

When June 1st, 2024, 13:00 - 16:30

Where The event will be held in the Green Room at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam

12: 50 - 13:10	Check-in
13:10 - 13.15	Welcoming remarks
13:15-14:45	Screening of Moeder Dao
14:45 - 15:00	Break
15:00 - 16:30	Conversation with Jeffry Pondaag and Wayne Modest

Jeffry Pondaag

Jeffry Pondaag is the founder and chairman of the Komite Utang Kehormatan belanda foundation (K.U.K.B. the Committee of Dutch Debts of Honour). With his foundation, Pondaag stands up for the Indonesia victims of the Dutch colonial occupation system. He is also committed to the interests of the Dutch 'Indonesia refusers' who were sentenced to four to seven years in prison because they did not want to fight against Indonesia between 1945-1949.

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Wayne Modest

Wayne Modest is Director of Content of the National Museum of World Cultures (a museum group comprising the Tropenmuseum, Museum Volkenkunde, Africa Museum) and the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. He is also professor (by special appointment) of Material Culture and Critical Heritage Studies at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

A cultural studies scholar by training, Modest works at the intersection of material culture, memory and heritage studies, with a strong focus on colonialism and its afterlives in Europe and the Caribbean. His most recent publications include the co-edited publications, Matters of Belonging: Ethnographic Museums in A Changing Europe (Sidestone Publications, 2019, together with Nick Thomas, et al), and Victorian Jamaica (Duke University Press, 2018, together with Tim Barringer). He is currently working on several publication projects including Museum Temporalities (with Peter Pels) and Curating the Colonial (with Chiara de Cesari).