Image: Jaap Kunst’s Collection, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Olivier Middendorp.
We are delighted to announce that our collaborative research team at the Department of History, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada, and the Department of Musicology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) has been awarded a significant grant from the Royal Dutch Research Council (NWO) under the Research into Collections with a Colonial Context program to support our research project, Restituting, Reconnecting, and Reimagining Sound Heritage (Re:Sound).
Re:Sound is led by Dr. Sri Margana (UGM), the Project Leader and Principal Investigator; Dr. MeLê Yamomo (UvA) and Dr. Barbara Titus (UvA), the Co-Applicants; and Dr. Widya Fitria Ningsih (UGM), the Project Coordinator.
Commencing on January 25, 2025, Re:Sound is scheduled to cover a wide range of activities over the next four years. These include a PhD researcher employed at UGM who will study sound archives in Europe, non-academic short-term visiting fellows (VFs: artists, activists, grassroots archivists, cultural entrepreneurs, community representatives) from Indonesia to the Netherlands, consortium meetings, and a workshop and summer school hosted by UGM in Yogyakarta.
We are particularly excited about our collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision (NISV), which serves as Re:Sound’s Cooperation Partner (CP). Moreover, Re:Sound emphasises the importance of several Associate Partners in Southeast Asia and Europe to build and expand translocal and transcontinental curatorial networks with accompanying communication infrastructures, in which collection curation is collectively managed by both academics and non-academics in source locations and source communities as well as in formerly colonial metropoles.
The potential impact of Re:Sound is profound. Re:Sound contributes to the complication and diversification of the notion of “heritage” by decentering European agency in the understanding, conception and curation of “heritage” through:
- A sound-source-based historiography, sensitive to multiple voices and stances at once, with particular attention to voices of those who are not represented or misrepresented in written historical sources on which most historiography has been based.
- Improved access for source community stakeholders to Dutch and other European archive institutions with regard to physical access (fees, visa, workspace), research access (language, cataloguing, structures of organisation/taxonomy), and digital access (accessibility of online databases and interfaces).
We are deeply grateful to the NWO for believing in our vision and for their generous support. We also thank our university leadership, dedicated staff, and the many colleagues whose ideas and encouragement have been invaluable.
As we embark on this journey, we invite you to stay connected. Follow our progress on our website, where we will share regular updates, breakthroughs, and opportunities for involvement.