"Commoning" the artist-led archive; Sharing Heri Dono’s private archive with a public audience

Built from the ground-up and with no formal government support, artist-led archives in Indonesia engage in commoning practices by creating community-centred platforms for knowledge sharing, in both physical and digital spaces. This article examines “acts of commoning” through the lens of artist Heri Dono at Studio Kalahan in Yogyakarta, an artist-led archive that challenges institutional approaches by treating Dono’s practice-based knowledge as shared creative resources, rather than private intellectual property. Three “acts of commoning” are explored through an iterative process of 1) building, 2) reproduction and digitization, and 3) sharing through exhibition and Instagram. It is argued that commoning of the artist-led archive is active, relational, and practice-oriented, where digitization and social media extend commoning practices beyond the physical boundaries of the artist’s studio. Building and sharing the artist-led archive is a dynamic, evolving process shaped by interactions between people, materials, and knowledge systems, rather than a static or linear effort to preserve a moment in time.

Audience participation · Public life · Digital and Traditional Archives Management · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis