The Echo from the Archipelago: Connecting Indonesia and Canada through Traditional Music by Exploring Collective Memories in Canada workshop was designed to develop a bridge between Indonesia and Canada through music as interpreted by the Indonesian Diaspora in Toronto, and an attempt to trace a collective memory between musicians from Indonesia in Canada and diaspora members.

The 23 July 2022 workshop was organized in celebration of the seventieth anniversary of Canada-Indonesia relations and YCAR’s twentieth anniversary.

The workshop provides a platform for communication and interaction that builds and establishes a collective memory, said YCAR Research Associate Teti Argo (Bandung Institute of Technology), the event’s lead organizer.

“This collective memory is considered constitutive for the process of building a resilient community in Canada with a strong and unique identity and characteristics. Based on these features and traits, the Indonesian diaspora as a community can connect between the past (homeland) and the present (Canada) in order to imagine the future in which multiculturalism of Canada,” she said.

Held in collaboration with the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia, it featured Orkes Garasi, whose members are Indonesian musicians. For the last decade, the group’s style have evolved in using a mix of various instruments in their songs, which cater to the memory of the diaspora. Organizers were keen to learn how the audience’s reception to their music contributes to the creation of transnational identities and subjectivities articulated through music listening, viewing and appreciation.

The organizing committee included Argo, Nira Kuntoadji, Bagoes Wiryomartono, Restiani Andriati and Herman Rasjid.