I am often asked why I write so much about identity, culture, and odes. Before I would say some iteration of the importance of representation, or fostering community, or creating narratives that exist beyond my own day-to-day life. Those things are still true. But at its core, I do what I do because everyone I’ve ever met is dying and I’m trying to hold on to whatever I can. 

Death is very real, and ripples well beyond the moment someone passes. I am very aware that I am the byproduct of a culmination of paths that have been made because, before, and by collateral someone died. I have simplified my legacy to this: someone died, and now I am here. I am trying to interrogate what exactly this means, especially as somebody who lives with the aftermath of family that is chosen and/or proximal. 

How do we live with what we inherit? What is considered hereditary? What defines a lineage, and is it always bound by blood? By disposition? By tragedy? Five artists that I love and care about alongside myself were asked to submit a manifestation of the things passed down to us, what we want to honor as a relic, and what we navigate as the archivists of the generations before us.

-Dena Igusti.

1. Identitas by Kaira Widodo

2. Sweet Blood // Flood Legends by NZZY

3. kenang-kenangan (memories): a risograph series by Kiana Widodo

4. To Speak in Leaving by Dena Igusti

5. Postcards from NY by Prince Edwards

6. aku pulang // i’m going home by Anastasia Alphina

By: Kaira Widodo

Kaira Widodo is an Indonesian photographer and alumni of Photography and Video at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Kaira focuses on documenting creative stories that focus on identity, culture, religion, and feeling. Works have been displayed at Chelsea, Flatiron SVA Gallery and  Mustard Seen Hotel Gallery in Tokyo.  

I'm longing to connect closer to my ancestors as well as my family, trying to piece together Indonesia and Islam. Using my father's sarong and recreating an older photograph of what could have been a memory of my great grandmother. The contrast of my identity and theirs within a piece of fabric. I hope that someday this memory is also being passed down to my past future. 

Before I come home I get a text from my brother.

​"Dad left again. All of his stuff is gone. He told mom it’s so he can make more money but idk."

     All of our calls get sent to voicemail later that afternoon, but we get a WhatsApp notification in our family group chat. It’s a picture of himself, grinning ear to ear in bootleg RayBans, sitting with his legs stretched out on a random private jet owned by a friend of his we don’t know.

"To Indonesia...see you guys..."

     For the next month, we get notifications of photos of his plane tickets, from Thailand to Indonesia to Brunei to Singapore back to Indonesia and more. Meanwhile, I pick up 10 art gigs and still have only $200 in my bank account because all of the money went to the mortgage he had to pay.

     My mom and I have always excused his inability to stay home with the fact that he was orphaned at eight and all seven of his older siblings left him for Germany. He’s lived on seven different islands throughout his life. When he met my mother, a city girl who only stayed in Jakarta, he was hiding from the Indonesian SWAT team for smuggling ebony wood and selling them to other countries. He faked pharmacist certifications and told customs in California that he was only coming to the U.S. for vacation, only for him to get his citizenship in New York City. When I was a kid, my dad always pushed me to go to college and get a “nice job''. He always emphasized the importance of giving back to parents.

"For your mama, give her whatever she wants," he declared.
"For me, I don’t want a house or a nice car, or clothes. I just want a big private jet, so I can go wherever I want. Whooshhh."
"Either you give that to me, or I’ll find it myself."

     The first and last time I confronted my dad about him leaving us to fend for ourselves was in the middle of a snowstorm. We were getting groceries for the bakery he wanted to close in two months so he can spend six months in Indonesia without sending any money back. In the car, I yelled, "You always go, go, go. You never stay and be responsible for your family! You’re not making any money over there and you drain all of our bank accounts!" 

He yells back, "And what happens if I stay here? You see how everyone looks at me. They see me as brown. No English even when I’m speaking to them in English. Everywhere else, I can be important!"

​An hour later we shop as if nothing happened. He sees a chair on sale made with ebony wood and smiles to himself.

     Whenever my dad came home, he spent the first week making half-assed meals. He’s a certified culinary chef by trade. The smell of onion and garlic was a setup for a false anticipation, a measly meal more pitiful than what the sauteed pungence promised. His carbonara was rubbery. The curry watered down. It tasted like it was to make up for something, or to prove he’s not his best when he’s in one place. I scarf all of his food down.

     I fell in love with a boy in January this year. I want to be around him all the time. His voice is really nice and everything he says and does is more than interesting. I was never allowed to sleep over anywhere, even now. But I spend my weekends and nights off with him and refuse to tell my mom, even at my big age. I lie and tell her I’m at Sophie’s. I do it once a month, then every two weeks. Now my mother knows my weekends belong to someone she doesn’t know. My boyfriend’s place becomes a safe haven from my returned father. Not only because I don’t have to see him or eat his food or hear him plan his next getaway, but because I can walk in whenever I want, him yelling, asking where I’ve been, and I can stare blankly, say out and walk straight to my room. To compensate, I send photos to my mom and brothers of where I’ve been. A My Chemical Romance concert I never mentioned planning on going to. An overview of a beach in Long Island. A Red Bulls Game. An exhibition at their favorite museums.

     During the weekdays, I cook for my brother and mom after school. I usually come home to the ghost scents of what was cooked the days I went missing. I open the fridge to a tupperware of leftovers. I hate food waste. I eat every meal I missed. Whatever is leftover I fashion a new meal with the same starter: onion garlic sauteed in oil. It’s never as good as when I cook for my boyfriend. The sauce is nice but I overcooked the noodles.

    When I head out the door my mom asks if I’m coming back later that night. I tell her no. She sighs, says I leave just like my father. Later that night, I cry to my boyfriend, saying I miss my family a lot, but I only feel safe with him and reassure him that he’s not forcing me to be away from my family. Because he’s not.

When my dad leaves again, he sends more artifacts of his adventures on WhatsApp. A huge crate of squid. The top of his forehead blocking a view of a sunset over a canal. A Manchester City game in a huge stadium. In the middle of the night, after my beloved falls asleep, I lie awake. It is 3AM. I pick up my phone. I’m the only one in the group chat who responds.

That’s really cool Dad.

10 seconds later, I get a notification.

Thank you my lovely daughter... I miss you... take care of mom.

aku pulang // i’m going home is a digital scrapbook documenting a trip to Indonesia, my birthplace and where my family’s heritage lies. The film follows 5 weeks through Jakarta, Bogor, and Bali as I visit the country for the first time in 5 years. The song “Serenata Jiwa Lara” by Diskoria soundtracks the film, an upbeat instrumental contrasted with heartbreaking lyrics on unrequited love. As someone who grew up completely in America, being in Indonesia often leaves me with similar contrasting feelings of bittersweetness. The euphoria of being close to family I rarely get to see, the excitement of being somewhere that’s so familiar and new at the same time. But alongside that lives the heavy weight of getting a glimpse into a life I could’ve lived, one where I could’ve been much closer to my family and heritage, been fluent in the native language of my parents, and maybe feel more connected to my surroundings and context. I’ve inherited a forever connection to this place but also a level of distance from it. With the relationship between myself and this country already being so vastly different from that of my parents’, I wonder how it will continue to evolve as time and generations go on.

DENA IGUSTI

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 2022 Perennial Award Winner and 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), SheNYC Festival at Connelly Theater (First Sight, 2023) and several other venues internationally.