botram served as the closing of my solo exhibition Leaky Cases at the Bewaerschole in Burgh-Haamstede. botram is a collaboration between me and writer and curator Roy Voragen. Roy has lived and worked in Indonesia for 15 years and my maternal family is from Indonesia. botram was a picnic on August 18, 2024 between 14-17 hours on the beach of Renesse where people exchanged stories; people took place on a hand-dyed, naturally colored (via the batik technique) rug and on this rug were handmade ceramic plates on which pandan sponge cakes were served. Coffee, tea, sponge cake and stories were exchanged as well as the botram zine, a publication that calls attention to words and flavors that migrate between porous languages and opaque bodies. For example, the word botram is loaned from the Dutch word boterham – into Sundanese, the language of West Java, and used in the sense of picnic (in Indonesian: ´piknik´). We talked about longing and belonging, in-betweenness, hospitality (and the lack thereof), family, food, cooking and sharing meals.

During the picnic we presented a first version of the botram zine and soon we publish an expanded edition of the botram zine. We invited Nuraini Juliastuti, Pris Roos, Ratu R. Saraswati and Timorous A. Kusno to reflect on the following question: what roles does eating (together) play in your life (as a migrant or as a child of migrants) (and of course, food can have both positive and negative meanings)? We shared their postcards at the beach. The audio recordings were played during the picnic and through a qr code in the zine the postcards can again be accessed.

botram – the picnic and the publication – is supported by @vfonds, @minvws, @mondriaanfonds and @bewaerschole_haamstede.
graphic design is by @petervandenhoogen_coup