In ‘Waves of Ternate: Collecting Ambiguous Memories by a Pearl Diver without a Name’, artist and researcher Sarojini Lewis adopts the perspective of an unnamed pearl diver from the North Moluccan island of Ternate, Indonesia. Through this figure, she traces three generations of women on 19th-century Ternate, exploring genealogy, gender, colonial memory, and the gaps left by missing or erased local knowledge.

The artist’s book brings together archival materials, family histories, and personal interventions in a layered visual narrative. Lewis draws on collections from the Rijksmuseum and Leiden University, photographs of female divers from the archive of Japanese photographer Uraguchi Kusukazu, and a family archive in New York, researched in collaboration with Nelson Harst.

During the event, Sarojini Lewis will also engage in a conversation with Setareh Noorani, Matt Plezier, Edwin van Gelder, and Stencilwerk, all of whom contributed to the book.