About
Flores, Indonesia. All photos on page by Jaap Kunst
Jaap Kunst Sound Collection
The Jaap Kunst Collection is part of the sound archive of the former Etnomusicologisch Centrum Jaap Kunst (ECJK) at the University of Amsterdam. This Center was named after the Dutch ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst (1891-1960). Kunst’s recordings, photographs, silent film footage, field notes, and correspondence from the Indonesian Archipelago became the basis for the collection of similar materials from elsewhere in the world, deposited by Kunst’s assistants and successors Ernst Heins and Felix van Lamsweerde, among others, from 1960 to the early 2000s.
Between 1922 and 1934, Kunst recorded more than 300 wax cylinders of music and practices from the Indonesian Archipelago. A large part of the wax cylinders is stored at the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv. They were digitized in the early 2000s but have remained hardly accessible until now.
Kunst’s oldest recordings contain gamelan music, recorded in Java in 1922 and Bali in 1925. A big wealth of the collection dates from the period between 1929 and 1934, when Kunst extensively travelled and recorded all over the archipelago. Katy Kunst-Van Wely assisted in some of the recordings as well as recorded independently. At Kunst’s request, Father Verschueren, a missionary in Merauke, recorded in West Papua in 1933. In many of his publications about West Papua, Kunst relied on the recordings made in 1926 and 1939 by the Dutch army officer and teacher C.C.F.M. Leroux during his anthropological expeditions. On his own account, Pieter Middelkoop, a pastor in Kapan, made recordings in Central Timor that also ended up in Kunst’s collection.
Further information can be found in Collection, for links and resources about the collection can be found in the list of Bibliography.
Curator Statement
The Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago (HIA) maintains a strong anti-colonial, anti-racist position and affirms its support for centering the humanity of historically marginalised and disenfranchised communities. The HIA builds on the Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS) project (2021-2024) which aimed to “enrich” metadata by adding new corrective terms, making items more searchable with additional names and locations, and many other factors. We do not attempt to erase the colonial past within this collection but add and enrich the metadata through 1) translation to languages pertinent to source communities; 2) community engagement and crowdsourcing with stakeholders; and 3) producing new metadata fields and terms as a way to widen potential curatorial choices. Such a widening of curatorial options unearths the coloniality of the data as they are, and shows colonial penchants in the process of recording, assembling, archiving and displaying the data, with the aim not to reinforce these penchants. This process of potential decolonization will be slow, gradual, and will be executed with great care.
HIA maintains reflexivity in the curation and digitization process of the collection. These practices align with theories on curating colonial archives, such as Jeurgens and Karabinos’ (2020) Paradoxes of curating colonial memory. Read more in the methodology and Bibliography sections.
Note on Naming
The Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago (HIA): stands for the curatorship of the collection and the website The Jaap Kunst Sound Collection (JKSC) stands for the physical sound objects. The Jaap Kunst Collection (JKC) stands for the collection overall which includes sound, images, correspondence, film, written publications by Jaap Kunst and any other material. Etnomusicologisch Centrum Jaap Kunst (ECJK) is the former name of the sound archive at the University of Amsterdam Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS) is a three-year research and community engagement project funded by the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on Cultural Heritage and Global Change supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.
Papua, Indonesia
Methodology
Forms of Presentation
The presentation of a collection is never neutral. It will inevitably be based on selection procedures, structures and presentation conventions that co-determine what is known about the collection. The JKSC collates digital material from institutions. Some of this material is inherently colonial and contains words, terms and phrases that are inaccurate, derogatory and harmful towards source communities and indigenous people who now live in the Republic of Indonesia and/or in diasporic communities within and outside the Indonesian nation state. Catalogue transcriptions, titles, exhibition and museum text on this website may contain harmful terms. We recognise the potential for the material to cause physical and mental distress as well as evoke strong emotions. Owing to the scale of the collection’s data, the process to implement sensitive-content warnings in the displayed data is still incomplete. The material within the catalogue does not represent the HIA’s views. For more information, see the Curator Statement.
Image Policies
The JKC contains 6,500 photographs as well as 6,000 projection slides and 1,600 glass plates for Kunst’s teaching. These images show what the collector could capture (both in terms of technological possibilities/ limitations and in terms of what the collector deemed worthy of capturing). While this website seeks to provide a complete multimedia collection, (we) take caution in portraying/replicating images of people who have been potentially captured without consent. Therefore, we keep in mind the ethical and personal dimensions.
Categories, Keywords
Sound archives are based on an attempt to record and document sound in a standardized and categorized way. Categories were selected through the logics of the personnel based in their historical particulars and agency to go with the recordings. Most perspectives have since changed where the recordings are concerned but the categories that originated in their historical contexts continue to constitute comprehensive metadata and they were partly taken over in the course of digitization. In database management it is hard – or reasons of capacity and searchability – to keep adding new perspectives by means of additions to database fields or to constantly transform the database by revising the data model.
Naming and Terms
For research purposes, it is desirable to provide current and historical names of countries, regions, ethnic groups and musical styles. Historical names and terms may now have a pejorative connotation. We welcome feedback to foster a more inclusive user experience.
HIA is committed to the long-term enrichment of the metadata. Through interventions by DeCoSEAS partners and stakeholders from Indonesia, this platform aims to expand the metadata to include more accurate descriptions of location and population.
Errors
Materials have been compiled from various institutions. The Jaap Kunst Collection has undergone multiple organizational attempts that lead to various incomplete catalogues. This website attempts to centralize and aggregate information about the materials and the collection overall.
The transcription of names and words and translation and transduction through languages and formats, produces changes and errors. Materials accessible through Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago are meant as guides. Definitive titles used by each institution need to be consulted for deeper understanding of the social lives of each object.
Database Language Versions
The language of research is embedded in long-term power imbalances. The initial documentation of the recordings and database text was often in Dutch, but we try to provide more translations, first in Indonesian and English, but in the long run to offer languages relevant to each stakeholder and community member.
Feedback on the Form of Presentation
The Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago (HIA) has earlier versions related to the project Decolonizing Southeast Asia Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS) and the Pratinada project. As each project takes notes from previous editions, feedback is welcomed towards increasing access through attention to anti-colonial and anti-racist methods to support the humanity of historically marginalised and disenfranchised communities.
Papua, Indonesia
Use
This website presents sound material that has not been accessible for years. The digitization and presentation of the Jaap Kunst Sound Collection online is a step further into making such heritage available. As a part of the digitization work package of DeCoSEAS project, this website seeks transferring agency to indigenous communities and stakeholders.
Possible Uses
Possible uses are the subject of ongoing discussions. Some of the recordings were made under duress by colonial subjects. Issues to consider are the legal frameworks such as personal rights and copyright alongside the logics of institutional archival organization and intercultural ethics. The material is meant to be used for research purposes. While they are available online, it is prohibited to download them or circulate them without permission.
Accessible Data
The database catalog can be researched without restrictions and the written and visual documents that have already been digitized can be viewed online. The digitized materials are not the complete collection. Our aim is to provide representative samples of the archives in terms of category, scope, and format.
Site Visits
Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago recordings can all be heard online, and accompanying documentation can be viewed on-site. We are happy to advise those who are interested, including but not limited to, students, community members, scholars, artists, curators, and public educators, about the various institutions where the physical materials are currently housed.
Restrictions
Do not reproduce materials without permission and citation of the Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago. The Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago maintains a duty of careful stewardship for the materials. Should you come across a use of the materials from the Jaap Kunst Sound Collection: Hearing the Indonesian Archipelago that you consider to be inappropriate for cultural, legal or ethical reasons we would be pleased to hear from you.
Contact Info
If you have a question or would like to know more about this website, please write via the contact form.
Address:
University of Amsterdam – Musicology Department
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16
1012 CP Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Curator: Dr. Barbara Titus
Credits
This website is part of the project Decolonizing Southeast Asian Sound Archives (DeCoSEAS), funded by European funds from the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPICH), 2021-2024.
Barbara Titus, Otto Stuparitz, Joséphine Simonnot, Layan Nijem, meLê yamomo, Citra Aryandari, Digitization Workpackage of DeCoSEAS for working on metadata, student volunteers, DeCoSEAS partners and stakeholders.
Design and development by Arkivox.
