Udeido Collective
Established 2018 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Based in West Papua, Indonesia
UNSW Galleries
The Koreri Transformation, 2024
mixed media
Collection of Konfir Kabo
Presentation at the 24th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous support from the Australia-Indonesia Institute and generous assistance from Project Eleven.
Courtesy the artists
Legend has it that long ago, a man named Manarmakeri went boar hunting on the island of Biak (modern Papua) when he was struck by a vision of a blissful village that held the secret to immortal life. In the days that followed, Manarmakeri observed that the people of his own village didn’t conduct themselves like those in the vision. Before long, he left, vowing to return when his people had found a better way of life and he could take them with him to the undying village, known as Koreri.
The call for Papuan independence that gained momentum in the late 1930s and early 1940s came to be known as the Koreri Movement. The movement was non-violent, seeking only to preserve cultural traditions and self-determination in a unified Papua, akin to the sacred space Manarmakeri promised.
In The Koreri Transformation, Udeido Collective, established in 2018 by artists across the region, memorialise the spiritual and political ideals of Koreri in the face of the neo-colonial expansion and environmental destruction that plague Papua. Taking their name from ude, a leaf commonly used on the island to treat wounds, the collective aims to heal and reconstruct the collective memory of the Papuan people.
Established in 2018, Udeido Collective’s works visually articulate the situation of the West Papuan people. Their practice touches on the use of conceptual elements from socio-cultural construction that exist in their own society. Reconstruction of these elements is placed as a method for analysing and discussing social issues within society caused by prolonged social-political conflict.
Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.