Arts

KK Dheeraj’s unauthorised biopic is full of tears and belaboured symbolism

  Alexandra Crosby

The role of design in social change has received increasing public attention in the last decade. User-centred, iterative, participatory flexible approaches to the design of objects, spaces, communications, services and experiences are valued by policy makers and firms all over the world to address issues of social justice, sustainability and urban development. Simultaneously the territory within which design operates has been changing. Design is sometimes used synonymously with consumerism, urban tastes, and globalisation, such as ‘designer handbags’, but what design is and what it does is much more complex, and many of these new definitions of design are emerging in Indonesia.

Essays and Fiction is a new series of writing in Inside Indonesia that aims to give voice to more personal stories about Indonesia. We welcome submissions in the form of reflective pieces, fiction, artwork, or essays about travel and fieldwork experiences.

The edge of Merah-Putih

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Indonesia at the Venice Biennale, 2013

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This Indian film’s popularity reveals a popular critique of the US

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Joshua Oppenheimer’s groundbreaking new film raises disturbing questions about why perpetrators of the 1965-66 mass killings still enjoy impunity for their actions

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The generation of artists rising after Reformasi is failing to create meaning outside the art market

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