Oceanic Solidarity

Read My World welcomes special guests from Maluku and West Papua this year. Their work forms the starting point for a program in which writers, artists, musicians, and thinkers come together around stories of memory, resistance, and solidarity.

The ocean is central as a space of movement, memory, and encounter. It connects migration and diaspora narratives and shows how people, languages, and traditions become interwoven across generations and continents. From West Papua, Maluku, the Caribbean, and the Netherlands, the program reflects on colonial legacies, the search for freedom, and the transmission of knowledge and culture. Music, literature, poetry, textiles, and visual culture play an important role as carriers of memory, loss, and resilience.

The program brings together diverse voices, from living song archives to diaspora stories and conversations about activism and justice. At its core is the question of how art and culture can contribute to collective strength, care, and possible futures. Oceanic Solidarity invites audiences to listen to voices that resonate across time and distance, with the ocean functioning as a dynamic space of circulating memories and growing solidarity.

Curators: Theoresia Rumthe and Dorthea Wabiser (DEFE)