Edwin Jurriëns
(Senior Lecturer in Indonesia Studies
The Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne)
Edwin Jurriëns is Senior Lecturer and Convenor of the Indonesian Studies program at the Asia
Institute of the Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne (2012–current). Previously, he was
Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of
New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra (2004–12). He holds a PhD (2001) and MA degrees (1996) in
Literature and Indonesian Languages and Cultures from Universiteit Leiden in The Netherlands. He
was also an undergraduate student at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Indonesian Institute of the Arts
(ISI) Yogyakarta (1994–95). He has had research fellowships and teaching affiliations with the Asian
Art History Program at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore (2018–current); Monash Art, Design
and Architecture (MADA) at Monash University in Melbourne (2018); The Graduate Institute of
International and Development Studies in Geneva (2018); and the International Institute for Asian
Studies (IIAS) in Leiden (2008). He is author of three sole-authored books, Visual Media in Indonesia:
Video Vanguard (Routledge, 2017), From Monologue to Dialogue: Radio and Reform in Indonesia
(Brill/KITLV Press, 2009) and Cultural Travel and Migracy: The Artistic Representation of Globalization
in the Electronic Media of West Java (Brill/KITLV Press, 2004). He is also co-editor of three edited
volumes, Digital Indonesia: Connectivity and Divergence (ISEAS, 2017), Disaster Relief in the Asia-
Pacific: Agency and Resilience (Routledge, 2014) and Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and
Close Encounters (Brill/Rodopi, 2007). His journal articles have been published in World Art, Third
Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture, Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Art, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Art and the Public Sphere, Taipei Fine Arts
Museum Modern Art, Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia, Journal
of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, and Indonesia and the Malay World. He is
editor of the Asian Visual Cultures book series of Amsterdam University Press and regional editor for
Australia and the Pacific for IIAS’s The Newsletter.
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THE KEYNOTE SPEECH
The Promotion of Planetary Citizenship through Visual Creativity
In this presentation, I address the central theme of ‘Visualising the Crisis’ by focusing on the
promotion of what could be called ‘planetary citizenship’ through different forms of visual creativity.
The idea of planetary citizenship connects analysis and improvement of the condition of planet Earth
with people’s social, cultural and political rights and responsibilities as global and local citizens. The
main case-studies are film and theatre director Garin Nugroho’s stage play ‘The Planet: A Lament’
and the environmental documentaries by film director Dandhy Dwi Laksono’s production house
WatchDoc. I argue their work approaches the COVID-19 pandemic not as an isolated crisis, but as
part of a larger complex of interrelated environmental, social and political problems. Comparing the
approaches by the two creative directors can highlight the synergies as well as contradictions
between different ways of encouraging people to take care of the planet.