LICA (Locating Indonesian Cultural Archives) Routes.

The colonial histories have significantly influenced the translocation, preservation, and representation of cultural artifacts originating from the Global South. Specifically, Indonesian artifacts have frequently been kept within European institutions, often devoid of their original contexts and meanings. These objects, once essential to local traditions and identities, are now situated in archives and museums distantly separated from their source communities. This prompts an imperative inquiry: How can a framework be established to enable scholars, artists, and communities from Indonesia to access and engage with their historical and colonial cultural heritage artifacts?

LICA Routes constitutes an interdisciplinary artistic research initiative aiming to address this inquiry by examining the origins and historical trajectories of Indonesian artifacts. The project critically examines the influence of colonial legacies on the representation of these objects, while suggesting novel methodologies to reestablish connections with their origins. By integrating digital technologies, artistic reinterpretation, and decolonial approaches, LICA Routes reconceptualizes the cultural archive of Indonesia as a dynamic locus for storytelling, accessibility, and cultural agency.

Decolonizing Digital Humanities (Indonesian Perspective)
Digital humanities projects frequently replicate colonial structures by designating Western institutions as the custodians of materials from the Global South, consequently marginalizing local epistemologies. Aiyegbusi’s critique of the Western-centric configuration of digital humanities, which underscores disparities in funding, institutional priorities, and technological accessibility, is pertinent in this context. Even upon digitization, these archives often sustain unequal power relations, as European institutions retain authority over metadata frameworks and interpretive narratives, thereby perpetuating colonial hierarchies under the pretense of digital preservation. Integral to this decolonial perspective is the reimagining of archival practices through collaborative stewardship rather than sole digitization efforts. In the case of Indonesian archives, this entails critically examining colonial-era collecting methods that extracted artifacts from their cultural and ritual contexts—a severance that continues in European digital repositories.

The article authored by Sadiah Boonstra and Caroline Drieënhuizen, titled ‘Locating Indonesia’s Cultural Archive: Towards Decolonial and Intersectional Histories of Indonesia,’ addresses these issues by critically examining the historical trajectories of their representation and challenging the hegemony of Eurocentric knowledge systems. Drawing inspiration from perspectives in digital humanities and museum studies, the LICA Routes project is positioned as an alternative means of reimagining Indonesia’s cultural archives through spatial narratives and artistic research practices.

Decentralization and Recentering Indonesian Heritage
The LICA Routes project will focuses on craft practices that were culturally and historically significant to Indonesia during its colonial period. This history spans several colonial regimes, beginning with the Portuguese empire in 1509, followed by the Spanish, British, French, and Dutch empires, which collectively shaped Indonesia’s cultural landscape until independence in 1945. These crafts, such as textiles, wood carvings, and ceremonial objects, serve as vital cultural archives that embody the traditions, philosophies, and spiritualities of their communities of origin.

Digital practices play a pivotal role in LICA Routes, enabling the transformation of these cultural archives into accessible digital experiences. While many digital archives of Indonesian artifacts exist online, they are often fragmented across multiple platforms maintained by European institutions. This fragmentation creates barriers for Indonesian communities seeking to access or engage with their heritage. To address this challenge, LICA Routes proposes a unified digital platform that consolidates these dispersed resources. By leveraging linked data principles and APIs (application programming interfaces), the project ensures that digitized materials are not only preserved but also made meaningfully accessible to source communities in ways that respect their cultural contexts.

One of the contributions of LICA Routes is its exploration of spatial narratives that connect European institutions holding Indonesian artifacts with their origins in Indonesia. This approach interrogates how colonial histories have shaped the movement of these objects while imagining new ways to reconnect them with their source communities. The project will create an interactive narrative that allows users to navigate between the physical locations of archives in Europe and their cultural contexts in Indonesia. For example, a user could trace an artifact’s journey from its origin in Java to its current location in a Dutch museum. This spatial storytelling enhances accessibility while fostering a deeper understanding of how colonial legacies continue to influence the representation of Indonesian heritage.

In addition to accessibility, the project emphasizes artistic interpretation as a means of engaging with these artifacts. Drawing from a curated collection of objects housed in European museums, LICA Routes develops polyperspectival narratives around selected artifacts. These narratives encompass multiple dimensions: the object’s biography, oral histories tied to its origins, craft traditions, spiritual significance, pre-colonial historical context, and philosophical meanings. Contemporary artistic interpretations are also integrated to explore how the absence of these objects affects the societies of origin today. This approach not only highlights the cultural significance of these artifacts but also fosters a deeper understanding of how colonial legacies continue to shape their representation.

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