Public Programming
SUMMER PROGRAMME I: 'NOT YOUR REMITTANCE HEROINE!'
Asymmetry, 102a Albion Drive, London E8 4LY
6-8PM, 29.06.2023
Artist and cultural worker Okui Lala will screen her short documentary film 'Rasa dan Asa' (Flavours, Feelings & Hopes, 2021, 27’) in which she collaborated with PERTIMIG (Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers Association in Malaysia) and supported members in documenting their own lives on their smartphones during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following the screening, Junko Asano, co-organiser of the series and researcher on the Indonesian migrant domestic worker movement, will introduce the Indonesian state’s disciplining of migrant workers as 'remittance heroines' as they broker village women for entry into the global labour market. She will then present Indonesian migrant workers’ digital self-performances on Facebook, considering different representational strategies as forms of creative resistance against the state.
In an ensuing conversation, Okui Lala and Asano will discuss their respective Sinophone identities in the multicultural community in Malaysia and in the SAR of Hong Kong in relation to the hiring of Southeast Asian migrant domestic workers, and how they built trust and solidarity with Indonesian migrant worker trade unions and labour associations.
FREE ENTRY, TICKET HERE
BIOGRAPHY
Chew Win Chen aka Okui Lala is an artist and cultural worker based in Malaysia. Her practice spans video, performance, and community engagement, and explores themes of diaspora, home, and belonging through the performances of domestic acts or vocational labour. Okui Lala also facilitates community video workshops with different communities, unions, and non-profit organisations.
Junko Asano is a researcher and writer completing her PhD at Oxford on the Indonesian migrant domestic worker movement in Hong Kong. She is the co-founder of Pondok, a discussion platform which brings together a community of researchers, organisers, journalists, and cultural workers in Hong Kong to critically engage with Southeast Asia.