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Based on her ongoing investigation into the Indigenous culture of the Minahasa in Northern Indonesia, Natasha Tontey  (Indonesia) proposes to engage with manifested beliefs and power structures through a queering approach and playful imagination. Her most recent video work Garden Amidst the Flame (2022) is currently on view at Stroom in Den Haag as part of the group exhibition From the Sea to the Clouds to the Soil.

Nele Brökelmann

 I read that you describe yourself as a diasporic Minahasan, why?

Natasha Tontey

“Both of my parents are from Minahasa, but I was born and raised in Jakarta. The political situation, religious dogma and job opportunities at the time made my parents migrate from Minahasa to the capital. That somehow also wiped out the Minahasan culture, rituals and spiritualism, myth and ancestral knowledge in their upbringing. North Sulawesi, where the Minahasan live, is in the Northern part of Indonesia, near the Philippines. Now, I am based in Yogyakarta, which is, as Jakarta, situated in the Southern part of Indonesia. All the economic activities and opportunities are here, on the Java island. The notion of ethnicity in Indonesia, as an archipelago state, is very complex. So even when you live in Indonesia you are considered as member of the Minahasan diaspora, because there are so many ethnicities in Indonesia. For the Minahasan people, there even is a word for those of them who live outside the Minahasa land: Kawanua.”

Nele Brökelmann

You know some of the Minahasan rituals, symbolisms and stories from your childhood, how did you experience them as a child?

Natasha Tontey

“To be honest, my parents are part of the generation that distanced itself from what is considered as ‘primitive culture’. There are many stories that I heard from my parents and relatives that sound magical and transcendental, though. For example, the stone economy: in the story nine ancestors are described who are gathered in the life-giving stone and these ancestors were practising land-commoning with stones. Also, there was the story of Watu Pinawetengan: where back in the deep time ancestors gathered, made a pact, and paying respect to the Earth through rituals. These stories were told to me as some kind of a deviant taboo, because they did not fit in the Christian narrative. They narrated the stories in ways that were supposed to make me afraid of the ‘primitive culture’ and thus follow the rules of Christianity. However, as a kid, I found these stories and myths really fascinating. In a way they actually made me less-Christian and the more they forbade me to go to the ancestral site, the more curious I became. I found that it’s about more than just a human–non-human relation: the stone determines their practice of commoning land.”

Natasha Tontey, The Epoch of Mapalucene, installation view at transmediale 2021 (Berlin, DE), Photo by Luca Girardini

Nele Brökelmann

In your video work Garden Amidst the Flame, there is a very intriguing line: “How am I to tell you a story, if you don’t have a history?” – Is that related to your use of non-linear storytelling and the mixing of mediums?

Natasha Tontey

“This sentence is inspired by the Coelacanth as a species, portrayed as the fish-monster riding the motorcycle in the film. This kind of fish is very mysterious to scientists, because they cannot figure out how they are still alive today. So ‘history’ in that sense relates to this unwritten historiography of that living fossil, and even if it has not been written yet, you can always speculate. That is also what I am interested in in storytelling: a myriad of possibilities that are not constrained by a linear narrative or timeline. I am more drawn to circularity, and that goes well with all the different elements from my research that I want to work into the story. I am interested in so many things: music, cinema, storytelling, animation and performance. Most of the time, the work asks for a certain mix of mediums, like a potion with various ingredients of which each has a different function.”

Nele Brökelmann

In your works, you also combine different layers of culture as the Indigenous, Christian and pop-culture elements. Is this mirroring what your daily environment in Indonesia looks like?

Natasha Tontey

“Yes, I am trying to compile what is popular and enjoyed by many Minahasan people throughout different times. The intro song of Garden Amidst the Flame (2022), for example, is Minahasan Christian music: a Disco Tanah (an Indigenous dance music style in Minahasa) that is remixed in the style of a Sunday school song. It is something with a very ordinary origin and that specific song went viral on TikTok. I find Minahasan Christian music very intriguing, especially because many Christians in Indonesia do not want to be associated with Minahasan ancestral culture. Through using this music in my work, I’m trying to explore dynamics as such in daily life.”

Natasha Tontey, Garden Amidst the Flame