SILATHURAMI is an ongoing exchange program between the artistic communities of Bandung and Pforzheim, co-initiated by 4E and the institutions EMMA and Rakarsa. The name is based on a Sundanese term that describes the cultivation of networks as an act of conviviality. Since 2021, the project has been furthering cooperation that brings together artistic and design positions against the backdrop of the contemporary socio-ecological tensions. The collaboration is also a proposal for a trans-local exchange beyond the big metropolises, such as Berlin or Jakarta, and instead focuses on the experimental regions of the northern Black Forest and the Sundanese city of Bandung.

SEDEKAH BENIH

Initiated by Vincent Rumahloine and Mang Dian in Bandung, Western Indonesia, SEDEKAH BENIH is a platform for knowledge exchange, focussing on bridging scientific and embodied community knowledge. Seeds as vessels of ecological intelligence are brought to the central „Waisenhausplatz“ of Pforzheim. Our collective 4E joins this human to human approach as the local part of the team. Alongside members of the various communities, who come together on this site, we set up bamboo huts that for the next two months become a meeting ground, where music for chilis connects nonhuman and human participants. The process is accompnanied by big events like a culinary arts performance with the Indonesian collective soy division but its real impact lies in its connection with the rhythms that melt together on this site, enriching the exchange at the Pforzheimer Waisenhausplatz.

NGAWAWAAS WAGON

Part of a 4E residency in Bandung, hosted by Rakarsa.
The idea of the wagon was sparked by the practices of our friends from the Tjibogo community of Bandung and moments of deep listening into the citapus river with a hydrophone. We encountered the Sundanese notion of Waas (or Ngawawaas) when our collaborator Nanda used the word to describe an arising sentiment while listening to the river – an almost-memory or a pleasurable reminiscence that was not fully his own.
The wagon carried a microphone array with hydrophones and contact microphones aswell as a speaker, playing field recordings immediately back into the site enabling a way of sensing into the aural environment collectively. It initiated an aqueous exchange, as an interface between the community of Pulo Sari, the rhythms of the Cikapundung river and us as visitors to the site. A ‘Sabulang Bentor’ discussion brought together activists and stakeholders, working around the river system. We learned and discussed about the deep connection of the Sundanese people to the local waters. Simultaneously we encountered a wounded and polluted river system. Pollution that has to be traced not as a separate event but as a form of slow violence, that unfolds in continuance of an extractivist cosmology.