Episode 16: Tintin Wulia – Embracing process and trusting the journey

In this episode, I sat down with Indonesian-Australian artist and researcher Tintin Wulia. Tintin wore many hats over the course of her artmaking journey. Before becoming an artist, she was previously trained as a musician, composer, and architect. Tintin’s journey in making art had many unexpected turns, but she has always been guided by her passion for learning and embracing the process wherever it may take her. We spoke about stories from her childhood, uncovering her family history and the disappearance of her grandfather, her journey from composing music to making her very first artwork, and what art means to her in a constantly changing world.

About Tintin Wulia

Tintin Wulia is a transnationally practicing artist and Senior Researcher at the University of Gothenburg. She engages with the complex power dynamics of societal and geopolitical borders as interfaces – both pragmatically and conceptually – through installation, performance, texts, and public interventions. Since 2000 she has published in over 200 peer-reviewed exhibitions/publications, including most recently a chapter contribution in an award-winning Routledge edited volume (2022), major exhibitions like the Chicago Architecture Biennale (2021), and a solo pavilion at 57th Venice Biennale (2017). Wulia’s works are part of prominent public collections worldwide, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum. She was an Australia Council's Creative Australia Fellow (2014-16), Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow (2019) at the Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit/NMNH, Smithsonian Institution, and an interdepartmental Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre on Global Migration, University of Gothenburg (2018-20), where she now leads her research projects. Her upcoming shows in Baik Art Jakarta and Melbourne’s RMIT Gallery will open in December 2023. 

Read Tintin Wulia’s article “Almost Indestructible” featured in Artlink Magazine Issue 43:1 Indonesia Focus here.

Find out more at @tintinwulia

This episode is made in partnership with Artlink who are supported by the Australia Council for the Arts; Arts SA; and their subscribers.