The Museum of Ordinary People strives to create a shared space to celebrate the history of ordinary people and the rights of citizens to live. As a shared space, this museum aims to remember ordinary people and subjects forgotten by history.
Our practices revolve around archiving the experiences of ordinary people, the voices of citizens, and issues surrounding urban villages. This museum is not a rigid and limited concept of a museum; it also does not want to museumize subjects.
The museum aims to be a shared space for citizens and ordinary people to archive their memories, then advocate for themselves and their groups autonomously. This museum is a response to the temporal challenges of the past, present, and future. The museum has at least three main agendas: rearticulating the history of ordinary people, archiving the daily experiences of citizens, and striving to create living spaces for the marginalized.
The agenda of rearticulating the history of ordinary people is the first important agenda because the perspectives of class and the precariat subject in Indonesian historiography are greatly overlooked. Especially the epistemic articulation that writes history about and from marginalized positions. Historiography has been built by the history of great people and famous political figures, while we want to write history together, from, and for ordinary people.
Citizens, ordinary people, do not need to be represented and represented by anyone, they speak for themselves. The subject of ordinary people always has ways to define their life history. The production of knowledge then becomes a medium for resilience and advocating for empowerment together - as an effort to read and build a shared tomorrow based on solidarity.
What we need is a temporal vision that transcends the space-time of the past and present. Archiving is an act of rewriting, seizing history, and building a future together in solidarity.
This museum is based in the market, all activities are done in one stall in the market. With two sections inside, the archiving space and the exhibition space. With all of this, the Museum of Ordinary People strives to be a space for daily activism methods with public history practices and art initiatives. Especially in a non-hierarchical situation sown together with citizens, ordinary people, and everyone who feels they own it.
The production of knowledge then becomes a tool-weapon to strengthen resilience in vulnerability and marginalization. All forms of documentation, all conversations, all archiving efforts are part of the effort to map the most appropriate knowledge production for the surrounding citizens.
Because every area, space, and context has specific problems. The form of a "museum" then becomes very multidimensional, besides being based on daily activism, rather than just short-term programs that end on a monthly or annual basis.
What we need is a temporal vision that transcends the space-time of the past and present. Archiving is an act of rewriting, seizing history, and building a future together in solidarity.
This museum is based in the market, all activities are done in one stall in the market. With two sections inside, the archiving space and the exhibition space. With all of this, the Museum of Ordinary People strives to be a space for daily activism methods with public history practices and art initiatives. Especially in a non-hierarchical situation sown together with citizens, ordinary people, and everyone who feels they own it.