Meet the Makers: Mira Asriningtyas

Fitri DK for 900mdpl: ‘Genealogy of Ghosts and How to Live with Them’, (Kaliurang, 2022).

In this Meet the Makers session, curator and writer Mira Asriningtyas will present her nuanced approach to curatorial practice across institutional, nontraditional, and off-site settings. Through her practice, Mira emphasizes the significance of cultivating local knowledge and facilitating meaningful intersections between art, artists, and communities, thereby expanding the role of curatorial work as an embedded, site-responsive practice. Drawing from her experiences, she will discuss the role of art in interlacing socio-political histories, cultural values, and collaborative methodologies, advocating for curatorial practices that actively engage with societal and environmental contexts.

Central to her work is the site-specific project “900mdpl”, a biennial program she initiated in her hometown Kaliurang, Indonesia. Set within a village near the caldera of Mount Merapi, “900mdpl” serves as a vessel for collective memory and ecological consciousness, positioning art as both an archive and relationality. Through “900mdpl”, Mira explores how art can actively engage with site-specific knowledge and collective histories, while redefining the curator’s role as a interlocutor within communities, as she believes that curatorial conversation is a long term conversation. In addition to this, Mira will also briefly share insights from her forthcoming publication, “Institution-Making on a Moving Ground: A Case Study of 900mdpl (2017-2022)” (working title), which offers a reflective analysis of 900mdpl’s institutional shift from an institution that works with the society to one that is working within the society. Drawing on decolonial and site-specific curatorial perspectives, this work proposes an adaptive methodology for curatorial practices in Indonesia.

Finally, as she enters her new role, together with artist Dito Yuwono, as director at Cemeti – Institute for Art and Society in Yogyakarta, Mira will introduce “Towards a Constellation of Friendship”, their vision for Cemeti as a space for artistic and civic dialogue. This vision seeks to bridge artists, researchers, and local communities in collaborative practices, challenging conventional notions of art spaces by reimagining them as sites of collective social engagement. Mira’s curatorial approach highlights art’s potential to connect individual narratives with communal histories, constructing a constellation of experiences that encapsulates the layered dynamics of contemporary Indonesian society.

Mira Asriningtyas is an independent curator and writer whose practice centers on site-specific, multidisciplinary projects that engage with socio-political contexts and cultural histories. She completed the De Appel Curatorial Program (Amsterdam), RAW Academie 6: CURA (Dakar), and holds an MA in Arts and Society from Utrecht University. Mira has curated projects for a range of institutions, including De Appel Art Center (Amsterdam), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin), MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Chiang Mai), KKF (Yogyakarta); ISCP (New York); Our Museum (Taipei); HMK (Hoorn); and others. Her writing is widely published in international books, exhibition catalogs, monographs, and journals such as Ocula, PARSE Journal, and Stedelijk Studies.

In 2011, she co-founded LIR, a curatorial collective that evolved from a physical art space into a nomadic initiative fostering experimental exhibitions, research-based art projects, and alternative educational platforms. LIR’s projects are characterized by multidisciplinary collaborations that aim to transmit knowledge, memory, and history across generations.

In 2017, Mira launched the site-specific biennale “900mdpl” in Kaliurang, an aging resort village under Mount Merapi. Inviting local and international artists for research residencies to create a socially engaged archive of the space presented as a multi-site exhibition and an internationally travelling transient museum. The 1st edition (2017) presented community portraits within their living space, while the 2nd (2019) mapped the village’s place within broader Indonesian history. The 3rd edition (2022) explored the intersection of mythology and environmental sustainability, with the upcoming 4th edition set to further develop these themes.

In early 2024, Mira, together with Dito Yuwono, were appointed directors of Cemeti – Institute for Art and Society in Yogyakarta. Founded in 1988 by artists Mella Jaarsma and Nindityo Adipurnomo, Cemeti is Indonesia’s longest-running platform for contemporary art in Indonesia. Cemeti offers artists and cultural practitioners a platform to develop, present, and practice their work in close collaboration with curators, researchers, activists, writers, performers, and local communities across Indonesia. The program takes shape through exhibitions, workshops, talks, assemblies, publications, long-term research threads, and a three-month artist-in-residence program.The subtitle ‘Institute for Art and Society’ was added in 2017 to express the organization’s commitment to socially and politically engaged artistic practices, exploring the possibility for a gallery to act as a site for civic action.

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Meet the Makers is a series by The Creative Humanities Academy, a platform that fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange between cultural and creative professionals and academic researchers and students. Here you will find the full Meet the Makers programme and archive.