Curating Collections

Artist Sally Hirst × Indonesian Collector Mia Tjahjadi/GULA

What happened during the collaboration?

Sally Hirst, based at Venture Arts in Manchester, connected with Indonesia-based Mia Tjahjadi over Zoom, to find out more about her family’s art collection built up over 30+ years and consisting of works made by artists in Indonesia only. After hearing about Sally’s interests in local culture and history, women artists, and animals, Mia spent time using this knowledge to source artwork from the collection to share with Sally based on these interests. Finally, after several weeks of sharing a variety of artworks from Mia, Sally narrowed down her final selection to just ten artworks that she grouped under the title Elements of Bali. This was due to her relating many of the works back to the four elements of fire, earth, air, and water. During this whole process, Sally also audio described the artworks in her own unique way, with poetry, to enable wider audiences with varying access needs to have a better sense of the artworks. Sally said, “I liked that it [the process] made learning about Bali’s amazing culture and history more engaging and accessible. It’s more exciting and easier than reading a long textbook.” Mia hoped that the project “inspired others to explore and celebrate the beauty of different cultures around the world.”

Biographies

SALLY HIRST is a talented self-taught illustrator, textile artist, and ceramicist who attends Venture Arts in Manchester. She is a socially engaged artist with much of her work being inspired by the people around her. Her parents are foster carers and her foster family inspires much of her work. Accessibility is at the heart of everything that Sally creates.

MIA TJAHJADI was born and raised in Bali, Indonesia, and has been involved with her family’s 30-year art collection her entire life. Focusing on Indonesian artists only, for the past two years Mia has been cataloguing the work further and set up a gallery called GULA to showcase works within. GULA (sugar) stands for Galeri Untuk Lingkungan Artistik, which translates to an opportunity to understand and relate through means of art. Mia says, “Just like sugar, art is ubiquitous, where it brings the sweetness of life; without it we would have no culture or creative becoming.”