Today we’d like to introduce you to Dena Igusti.
Dena, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am an Indonesian Muslim interdisciplinary writer. I mainly use playwriting and poetry to preserve archives of Indonesian diasporic migration in New York City, and advocate for survivors of gender-based violence.
I was born and raised in Queens as part of the Muslim Indonesian community in Elmhurst. My parents were the founding members of the Indonesian Muslim community in Woodside in 1995 via Masjid Al-Hikmah. From 1997 to 2012, my family and I would host Indonesians who recently migrated to NYC from Indonesia in our homes, specifically in our one-bedroom apartment from 1997-2005 in Elmhurst and 2006-2012 in South Ozone Park.
I am a part of the generation that is left with remnants of what our elders couldn’t recall. Colonialism, state surveillance, and post 9/11 Islamophobia drove Muslim Indonesian communities in America to not pass down most histories, customs, and lineages. All of my understanding of what it means to be Indonesian relies on what I learn from my loved ones. But life is fleeting. Based on archives of Indonesian migration in the 80s and 90s, interviews with Southeast Asian community members in the tri state area and beyond, collaborations with NYC locals, and personal anecdotes, I use writing to address the importance of archives as a form of art and in turn, art as a form of archive for communities that are not granted the privilege of documentation and record. Within this space, I am able to describe and visually show through narrative, style, and dialogue the ways I feel disconnected, and to showcase that there is still significance in fragmented information. I try not to fill in those missing gaps between my narrative. Rather, I hone in on what I do and do not know, how to build on both, and how to create entirely new information that combines and transcends these binary components.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not! A lot of Indonesian diasporic histories and proofs of our existence are not formally recorded due to state censorship, let alone the acknowledgement of queer Indonesian experiences, so it is crucial for me to be considerate of my own safety, my family, and my general community’s safety as I use fiction and poetry to write about real historic events. As a queer Indonesian artist who has been denied archives of my people, my art-making process has always centered on research and collaboration by basing fictional narratives on culminations of real life accounts and interviews from queer Southeast Asian communities. I have always used fiction as a buffer to navigate documenting a community narrative.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a queer non binary Indonesian Muslim writer and survivor of female genital cutting and other forms of gender based violence that utilizes art to mobilize survivor advocacy. Alongside using writing (poetry, creative non fiction, and playwriting) to preserve archives of Indonesian and Southeast Asian diasporic migration in New York City, I am one of the few queer survivor activists in the United States that highlight the importance of survivor advocacy and survivor-led initiatives that hold cultural, queer, religious, and racially marginalized nuance. I have served as an advisory board member at Sahiyo and the FGM/C Advisory Committee for the New York City Council. I have two poetry collections, ECDYSIS: CACOPHONY OF SKINS (Fourteen Poems, UK 2025) and CUT WOMAN (Game Over Books, US 2020) which has been listed as a 2022 Perennial Award Winner and Entropy Mag’s Best Of 2020-2021.
My work has appeared in Adi Magazine, PEN America, Womanly Mag, LA Times, Public Theater, HERE Arts, and more. I am a New York for Arts & Culture Resident Artist, National Queer Theater Resident Playwright, Radical Dreamyard at Guggenheim Fellow, Asian American Arts Alliance Grant Recipient, NYFA Women’s Fund Recipient, NeXT Doc Fellow, Brooklyn Public Library Heritage Ambassador, Asian American Writers’ Workshop Open City Fellow, Asian American Artist Alliance Grantee, We Are Family Foundation Grantee, Converse All Star Artist, and more.
What makes you happy?
My loved ones, and the ability to learn more about them every single day. Using my art as an excuse to form deeper connections with everyone I love. As much as accolades are cool, I find so much joy in understanding their worlds and histories beyond our day to day conversations. I can perform a Bugis poem for a festival, for example, and that gig suddenly becomes a vessel for my dad to teach me the Bugis language, what our people are known for, how his upbringing led to him to learn more languages than his siblings. I’ll use my mom’s favorite artist as a soundtrack for my play, and she’ll tell me all the clubs and parties she went to when she was my age in Indonesia and New York City, how much she misses her uncle, and more.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://denaigusti.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/dispatchdena
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dispatchdena
