Myths are passed along through the generations as bedtime stories. As listeners, we don’t ask questions, we don’t demand an explanation, but as we grow we find out that myths are not as innocent as they first appeared. Myths are flipped, turned and twisted to meet particular agendas.

Storyteller Karina Roosvita and design researcher Vicky Gerrard have invited 5 storytellers Desy Gitary (Indonesia), Putri Siswanto (Indonesia), Zarina Muhammad (Singapore), Mumtaz Khan Chopan (Afghanistan), Acong and Hilman (Indonesia), to join them, for a 6-month creative exchange to explore how myths are manipulated and how such manipulations are experienced in everyday life.

To support the creative exchange we are organising a small series of public events to explore the bigger themes on the politics of myth, namely Myth Making, Migration, and Spirits. This launch event is the first in the series, where Karina and Vicky will introduce the project and the storytellers.

See below for details about the future panel discussions we are planning. The events will be informal to encourage a wide discussion between the audience, panellists and our storytellers.

Event Series

07/05/21 6.30-7.30pm (Indonesia Time) -- Launch Event: An introduction to the project and the participating storytellers. We will also make an offering to Kanjeng Ratu Kidul.

11/06/21, 6.30 - 8.00 pm (Indonesia Time) -- First panel - Myth Making and Revisionism

Dr Soe Tjen Marching: a writer, academic, activist, and composer of avant-garde music from Indonesia. She is a creative writer and a senior lecturer, teaching Bahasa Indonesia, at SOAS in London. She writes about women, Indonesian politics, and religion.
Ng Yi Sheng: a Singaporean writer whose collection of poems, Last Boy, won the Singapore Literature Prize. He has also written a documentary book on gay, lesbian and bisexual Singaporeans called SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century in 2006.
Simon Aeppli: a filmmaker and researcher whose work explores the disinformation techniques used by the Information Policy Unit (IPU) in Northern Ireland during the early 1970s. His research focuses on the coordination of fake satanic rituals throughout Northern Ireland to create terror and confusion across the province.

09/07/21 6.30 - 8.00 pm (Indonesia Time) -- Second panel - Migration and Storytelling Form

Angélica Cabezas Pino: Dr Angélica Cabezas Pino is a Research Associate at Sussex University. She has conducted research with people living with HIV in Chile, with refugee women in emergency settings in Bangladesh and Jordan, among others. In the UK, she has worked with women artists with experiences of displacement, and with queer communities to explore gender performativity.
Vicky Do: (or Vi, in Vietnamese), born in Saigon, is a media artist with the focus on both still and moving images. She uses art as a response along her life journey. Vicky works with stories and images as a form of historic preservation, archival, and investigation. She’s interested in the politics of urban planning, national territory and their relationship with the human flow, aka, exodus.
Third Panelists: TBD

13/08/21 6.30 - 8.00 pm (Indonesia Time) -- Third Panel – Spirits and Applied Storytelling

Speakers TBD

Twisted Myth is an independent artists exchange supported by Ruang Mes56 and Inkubator Inisiatif. The ongoing work from the exchange will be presented online through the Twisted Myth website and Radio56.

Twisted Myth Artist Exchange Launch Event