Dena Igusti is a queer non binary Indonesian Muslim poet, playwright, filmmaker, producer, and FGC survivor & activist born and raised in Queens, New York. They are the author of CUT WOMAN (Game Over Books, 2020), which has been listed as a 2020 Harvard Bookstore Staff Pick and a Entropy Mag’s Best Of 2020-2021, and I NEED THIS TO NOT SWALLOW ME ALIVE (Gingerbug Press, 2021). They are the co-playwright of the wish: a manual for a last-ditch effort to save abortion in the united states through theater. They are the founder of Dearest Mearest.

Their work has been featured in BOAAT Press, Peregrine Journal, and several other publications. Their work has been produced and performed at The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, the 2018 Teen Vogue Summit, Players Theatre (SHARUM, 2019), Prelude Festival (Cut Woman, 2020), Center At West Park (CON DOUGH, 2021), The Tank (First Sight 2021 at LimeFest), and several other venues internationally.

They are a 2022 NeXt Doc Fellow, 2022 Lime Arts Unfinished Resident Playwright and Synesthesia Resident Artist, 2022 Sundress Arts Resident, 2022 Best of the Net Nominee, 2021 Baldwin For The Arts Resident, 2021 Hook Arts Media Digital Connections Fellow, 2021 Rogue Theater Festival Playwright-in-Residence, 2021 City Artist Corps, 2021 Stories Award Finalist, 2021 LMCC Governor’s Island Resident, 2021 Broadway For Racial Justice Inaugural Casting Directive Fellow, 2020 Seventh Wave Editorial Resident, 2020 Ars Nova Emerging Leaders Fellow, 2020 Spotify Sound Up cohort member, 2019 Player’s Theatre Resident Playwright, and 2018 NYC Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador. They are a Converse All Stars Artist and UN #TOGETHERBAND Global Ambassador.

PROJECT : A BIT TUARY

A Bit Tuary is a multimedia found poetry series based on a culmination of interviews with Southeast Asian NYC locals and their relationship with grief, both current and anticipatory. The series addresses the importance of archives as a form of art and in turn, art as a form of archive. Participants are asked to discuss a physical symbol of a grief they are currently or expecting to face, and why it is a symbol of grief for them. Visual poems will be created based on excerpts from every interview. The purpose of the project is to showcase what is generationally passed down when in constant proximity to loss. It also seeks to address the importance of archives as a form of art and in turn, art as a form of archive for communities that are not granted the privilege of documentation and record.

If you are a Southeast Asian NYC long-term resident interested in being interviewed, please fill out this form here (hyperlink: https://forms.gle/LmbohxuEuX9DUWH88)