As part of the Ethical Policy, research and improvement programmes targeting crafts and artisanal industries emerged in Dutch-occupied Indonesia. In this text, Rosa te Velde looks at how the notion of the ‘will to improve’ was central to the work of 'Indologist' Rouffaer, and colonial servant J.E. Jasper and others. How to understand their work in the context of expanding and intensifying occupation to the ‘outer possessions’ (the territories beyond Java and Madura)?
Rosa te Velde is a designer, researcher, and educator. She works as a researcher at the Amsterdam University of the Arts and teaches in the MA Industrial Design program at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Her practice explores the intersections of design, politics, and decoloniality through critical and cross-disciplinary approaches.