Synopsis

Festivals of the past had served a potent function for addressing social imbalances, from debt forgiveness to restoring social order—which are still in practice in some religious festivals of today. Through a series of case studies, Kamiliah suggests how art festivals can return to being those imaginative spaces.

About Kamiliah Bahdar

Kamiliah Bahdar works across exhibitions, programmes and projects as curator, organiser, researcher and writer. She graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from Monash University, Australia, where she majored in Anthropology and researched identity politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia. Her first foray into curating was as a participant in Curating Lab 2012, a programme by NUS Museum. In 2015, she pursued an MA at Nanyang Technological University where she wrote a thesis on micro-residences in Indonesia’s support for contemporary art practices. She is currently a curator for SMU Libraries, and is exploring the role of art in education, support structures and community building.

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