Concept
The Aust-Indo Creative Climate Futures Incubator is a cross-cultural artist incubation-residency and exhibition program that brings together Indonesian and Australian artists to imagine alternative climate futures through community driven practices. We take a climate justice lens to this project, recognising the sharply differentiated climate impacts and responsibilities across the region, especially for Indigenous coastal and youth.
Over several months, selected artists engage in hybrid residencies—combining workshops with scientists and cultural practitioners, immersive research in local communities (such as coastal, rural, and Indigenous groups), and collaborative prototyping of new artworks. By situating art-making at the intersection of speculation and lived experience, the program fosters dialogue on resilience, adaptation, and shared ecological imaginaries across the region. We will actively involve both human and more-than-human collaborators.
The program culminates in a bi-national exhibitions and public programs presented in both Indonesia and Australia, complemented by a digital platform that archives artworks, narratives, and participatory processes. Featuring installations, media works, speculative design, and performance, these exhibitions and programs serve as both an artistic exploration and public forums, amplifying community voices and expanding climate discourse beyond traditional art and environmental spaces. This initiative positions art as a vital tool for envisioning plural, collective futures shaped by ecological interdependence. The project will be guided by an ecological-ethical framework covering sustainability, ethics, technological engagement.
Artists will be encouraged to create small practical interventions such as simple ecological tools, micro-composting, seed libraries, or local climate futures maps, ensuring artworks have the potential to support genuine community resilience rather than limiting ideas to the public programs.
Cross-cultural collaboration:
Participating artists will be invited on application to nominate details including their preferred art project details, site(s), artist collaborators, community and cross-cultural engagement ideas and will be matched with other artist(s).
Dr Michael Chew – Project Coordinator/Australia Core Team Artist
Michael is a freelance community artist and social ecologist whose practice led work explores creative, participatory processes in social and environmental contexts, with a focus on storytelling across cultural and geographic borders. He draws from interdisciplinary perspectives with degrees in Participatory Design, Mathematical Physics, Critical Theory, Art Photography and Social Ecology, and has run community storytelling projects across the Asia-Pacific region. His design-based action-research PhD explored how participatory photography and other creative practices can inspire youth environmental behaviour change across cities in Bangladesh, China and Australia, and he recently completed a Rotary Peace Fellowship at Chulalongkorn University investigating distributed co design processes with youth and environmental storytelling.
Gav Barbey – Australia Core Team Artist
Gav Barbey is a Daylesford-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on participatory and immersive movement, mark-making, and dimensional space exploration. With over 30 years of experience, Gav works across multiple disciplines, including visual arts, theatre, and film. He holds a degree in theatre and film studies from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA), specialising in production, set, and costume design. Gav has collaborated with numerous theatre and dance companies and was a founding member of Richard Roxburgh’s ‘Burning House.’ His recent work emphasizes co-creation with the public, including projects at Hyphen Regional Gallery and ephemeral sculptures in Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Gav also works within the corporate and education sectors as a nature-play facilitator, human-centered designer, ideation facilitator, and community engagement expert. Over the past five years, somatic movement has become central to his practice, with daily dance explorations during COVID serving as a transformative element of his studio work. As a yoga and somatic educator with expertise in Body Mind Centering (BMC), Gav’s interests lie in the organic flow and symmetry of patterns. He is currently on the board and curatorial team for Radical Fields, an immersive arts festival.
Gav’s extensive experience in participatory arts and somatic movement contribute expertise to the project’s experimental engagement models. His focus on co creation enhances accessibility protocols through multi-sensory design.
Irene Agrivina – Yogjakarta Core Team Artist
Irene Agrivina is a technologist, artist, and educator, and open systems advocate based in Indonesia. Irene stands as one of the founding members and current directors of the House of Natural Fiber (HONF), an arts, science, and technology laboratory based in Yogyakarta. Established in 1998, HONF emerged amidst the social and political unrest against the nepotism and corruption prevalent during the Suharto authoritarian dictatorship in Indonesia. In 2013, Agrivina co-established XXLab, an all-female collective dedicated to arts, science, and open technology, representing the second generation of HONF’s spin off communities. Notably, in 2015, one of XXLab’s initiatives, SOYA C(O)U(L)TURE, received the [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant from Ars Electronica. In 2019, Asialink—a think-tank at the University of Melbourne—selected Irene as one of six pioneering women from Southeast Asia and Australia.
Irene’s 25+ years directing transdisciplinary labs aligns with the project’s hybrid digital-physical framework. Her gender equity advocacy also strengthens the community engagement strategies and equitable artistic recruitment.
Dhoni Yudhanto – Yogjakarta Lead Artist/Core Team Artist
Dhoni Yudhanto (b. April 18, 1989, Yogyakarta) is an architect and project manager with a focus on experimental architecture and urban design. He graduated from the Department of Architecture at Gadjah Mada University in 2013, where he developed skills in 3D modeling, prototyping, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Dhoni co-founded DORXLAB, an architectural lab focused on experimental and parametric design, and currently works at SA:LA Atelier, a consultancy he also founded. Since 2011, Dhoni has been involved in various projects with HONFablab, including the Diamagneti(c/sm) Species at the Istanbul Biennale (2013), the Grow Kitchen Project in Pau, France (2015), and the Ungovernable Structure in Germany (2021), among others. He continues to collaborate with HONF and HONFablab as a researcher and co-worker.
Dhoni’s expertise in cross-cultural prototyping and parametric systems directly supports the project’s climate-responsive design goals. His leadership at HONF ensures visiting artists will be well taken care of through HONF residency infrastructure