Kolektif Karya Anak Bangsa

We hold a bi-annual creative arts collective movement, Kolektif Karya Anak Bangsa (Collective Works of Indonesian Youth), or KKAB, launched in August 2014, with a theme on “Menembus Dunia dengan Menulis: Tulisanku Mengubah Masa Depan Lingkungan” (Breaking through Borders with Writing: My Story Transforms the Future Environment). It was dedicated to nurture literary arts culture and spotlight creative works by Indonesia's youth, especially those under 25 years old. We have held a couple of similar events in collaboration with Art for Autism Surabaya and a couple of homeschooling communities. KKAB was launched again with a bigger coverage on 17th December 2022, in the form of an exhibition which showcases creative works and performances created by youth, striving to be a safe space that invites other fellow youth to create their own works.

Our next event, which shall be titled Kolektif Karya Anak Bangsa “Deformity as Re-Storying”. It will invite Indonesian youth, who are often sidelined in socio-cultural discourses, to express their own stories using various media, particularly writing and graphic storytelling, while defying traditional texts and images of storying. Through this process, we believe these children will become wise future leaders who prioritise community over individualism, strategise for collective liberation over performances of diversity, and transform the world into a more just place. It is an arrangement of events, consisting of mentoring workshops and collaborative forum spaces, concluded by a creative exhibition on the 20—27th of November 2024, coinciding with World Children's Day, and a published anthology book in December 2024.

For this forthcoming KKAB, we were particularly inspired by Preti Taneja’s Aftermath. We realise there still remains a colonisation of storytelling forms. In her book, Preti Taneja describes her experience of teaching creative writing to formerly incarcerated and institutionalised people in the United Kingdom, during which she observes how linear “form” in creative writing is submitted as proof of productive recovery to be weaponised as a capitalist instrument of reinstating or refusing humanity in a person. Which is why, through this project, we have a mission to demonstrate “deformity as re-storying” as part of a safe healing process for Indonesian children and the promotion for anti-colonial, care-based education throughout Indonesia.

We are currently searching for funding to maximise an equitable distribution of wealth for marginalised children, to support and sustain their creative arts making.

We hope KKAB is successful, connects sustainable communities so that they will prosper for a long time, and helps children across Indonesia and the rest of the world to access literary education equitably. In the future, we hope to continue this collaborative program of Kolektif Karya Anak Bangsa, creating access for more indigenous children to stand on the same stage as children in major cities.