Yogyakarta Takes Centre Stage as Three Nations Bring Shared Heritage to Life Through Art

The performances mark the culmination of Embracing Shared Heritage through Performing Arts, a regional initiative implemented by UNESCO in partnership with Temasek Foundation.

A forest, a remembered language or a family recipe can carry stories that reach beyond the borders of a single country. Two new performances in Yogyakarta explore those connections through the work of artists from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, bringing Southeast Asia's shared heritage to the stage through personal memories, cultural traditions and relationships with nature. The productions grew from four months of exchange and joint creation, giving artists space to explore how centuries of migration, trade and cultural exchange continue to shape people's lives.

The performances mark the culmination of Embracing Shared Heritage through Performing Arts, a regional initiative implemented by UNESCO in partnership with Temasek Foundation. The October programme features Hutan at Pesta Boneka on 6–7 October at Kampung Media, and Rumah dari Lidah (House of Tongue) at the Bedog Arts Festival on 9–10 October at Studio Banjarmili, bringing the collaboration to wider audiences through two established arts festivals.

A forest filled with shared stories

Hutan approaches the forest as a cultural and natural space connecting communities across Southeast Asia, drawing on memories, stories, beliefs and the relationships people build with their surroundings. Its exploration of shared heritage reaches beyond national boundaries to consider how nature holds meaning for different communities, offering a meeting point for experiences that may be familiar across the region without being identical.

The production incorporates approaches designed to make the performance more accessible to neurodiverse audiences, extending its consideration of connection to the people watching it. That attention to accessibility forms part of a creative process in which artists brought different histories, identities and artistic traditions into conversation, discovering new ways to interpret and express the heritage they share.

Peranakan identity told through personal experiences

Rumah dari Lidah explores Peranakan heritage across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, tracing connections shaped by generations of migration and cultural exchange. Director Melati Suryodarmo wanted the performance to make room for diverse personal experiences, allowing fragments of history, language, food and memory to reveal the many ways people understand their identity.

Some of those experiences may have been hidden or forgotten, making the production a space for recovering memories as much as presenting them. Suryodarmo's approach gives individual stories room to breathe, reflecting the complexity of a heritage that connects communities across three countries and carries different meanings within families and across generations.

Creating space for artists to meet across borders

For Moe Chiba, Head of Culture at UNESCO's Regional Office in Jakarta, the project created an opportunity for artists to meet and explore connections that artistic expression can carry across borders. She explained that art often travels in unexpected ways, even when artists face limits on their own freedom to move and gather, making opportunities for direct collaboration particularly valuable.

James Chan, Head of Programmes Office and Resilient Societies at Temasek Foundation, described the arts as a way for communities to discover different experiences and find common ground, recognising the traditions, stories and perspectives each community brings. Launched in 2025, the initiative has involved artists, researchers, students and cultural practitioners in workshops, discussions and artistic exchanges across the three countries. The partnership's hope is that these encounters will strengthen connections across cultures and contribute to greater harmony in the region's diversity, with the Yogyakarta performances opening that conversation to a broader public.