Elly Kent
Tell us about yourself!
I am Dr Elly Kent, I’m based in Canberra and have just taken up a continuing position at the ANU as lecturer in Indonesian Studies. My area of research is Indonesian art, and the translation of my first book, Artists and the People: Ideologies of Indonesian Art, is about to be published. I look at contemporary art but also the history that leads up to that in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. I’m always surprised and invigorated by all the different fields that research leads me into, from politics to agriculture to television; it is never dull and it’s never “just pictures”!
When I’m not working (when?) I spend time with my family, our dog, or in my slightly too time-consuming garden. I prefer to be outdoors if I’m not in the office, so long as there is no snow involved.
Where does your interest in Indonesia stem from?
I first travelled to Indonesia in the late 1980s, when I was about 10 years old. We moved to an aid project in town called Kefamenanu, in central West Timor, and lived there for 2 years. We learned Indonesian full-time for a month before we left, and we definitely needed it because almost no one in Kefa spoke English. I never lost interest in Indonesia after that – I kept studying it all the way through primary school, high school and uni. At uni I also started at art school, and at that time we often had Indonesian artists visiting the school, so I was introduced to many amazing artists and that was it – I found my passion.
What is the nature of your engagement with Indonesia – are you an academic, a professional, an alumni?
I’m an academic – teaching Indonesian language and researching Indonesian art. But in the past I’ve also run the Australia-Indonesia Youth Exchange Programs, worked in galleries and museums and taught Australian students in Indonesia through ACICIS.
Have you ever been to an Indonesia Council Open Conference and if so, what is your fondest memory?
I’ve been to a few Indonesia Council Open Conferences, but I’m a little bit biased: my fondest memory is of the Conference that we organised at ANU in 2019. It was the first time I had worked closely with other Indonesianists at ANU and I got to know some amazing academics who had, until then, really been my idols or at least the authors of books and papers I cited in my research. I also met a lot of other early career academics from Indonesia and Australia at ICOC, and this opened up a whole range of new networks and connections for me, which has informed an influenced my work since.
How do you think organisations like Indonesia Council can improve Australia-Indonesia relations?
There are a lot of different levels at which Australia-Indonesia relations work and higher education and research is a really important one (but by no means the only one). Because that’s where the Indonesia Council locates itself, I think an important part of our remit is to advocate for our scholars and their scholarship, to encourage collaboration and cross fertilisation among the many disciplines that Indonesianists work in, and to support and promote their work to the broader population. But we might need a lot more resources to do all of that!
What are some of the challenges and opportunities in the Indonesia-Australia relationship?
I think the biggest challenges we have are in turning in-principal interest in the relationship into investment in that relationship. Our education system is both a challenge and an opportunity, especially as it has successfully trained many young Australians in Indonesian language in the past. So, we know there’s a model—or models—that work for primary schools and high schools, and that that flows on to higher education; the challenge is in getting consistent, appropriate funding to make it happen. I also think there are many opportunities to build engagement through the creative industries and cultural exports, and these are also a great way to develop a higher level of “Indonesia literacy” among the broader population. We always here about how Australians don’t know that Bali is part of Indonesia, but you can hardly blame them when that kind of literacy is not taught widely in schools, and not prioritised by our mainstream cultural and media platforms.
Tell us about your favourite Indonesian food experience
When I first lived in Indonesia as an adult, we used to go out to eat at a warung every night. Our favourite was a place that only did nasi goreng and mi goreng, but it was the most amazing flavour and we loved to watch the cook work. He had one eye and one of his arms was super-muscley from working these massive woks with his chan. More recently I’ve been thrilled by each new flavour of terang bulan, or martabak manis; pandan terang bulan is now in my top 5 Indonesian foods.
What’s your favourite Indonesian music/song/writer?
Lately I’ve been enjoying listening to the rising stars of Indonesian hip-hop, many of whom are from the outer islands and who speak Indonesian quite differently from the Javanese version, and also often use their local languages. Check out Keilandboi and Presiden Tidore. I’ve also had Bagus Dwi Danto’s latest album, Kudu, on high rotation for my folk fix.
[Last month’s PAY IT FORWARD question]: Indonesian language has incorporated many English words, sometimes altering the meaning of the original English word in the process of adopting it. What is your favourite Indonesian word derived from English?
I LOVE woles, which is selow back to front, borrowed from slow…. So woles means to take it easy, go slow, be a bit relaxed and not in much of a hurry. To be honest though, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually had call to use it IRL.
?PAY IT FORWARD: Finally, it’s YOUR turn to ask a question… Please suggest a question we can ask our next member!
What’s your favourite way to get news from Indonesia?