Entry №5 — Hanin Azizah: A New Chapter

Wednesday, September 9, 2026

It has been a while since we wrote here.

In our last entry, SHI was leaving the harbour. Then summer happened, and the ship's log grew quiet. There were still people to meet, things to make, and a surprising number of small questions hiding inside every large idea. We owe you a letter.

This one was going to be Hanin's. We had agreed that she would begin writing from our Indonesian chapter. But she has only recently arrived in Bali, and her first days with us have filled quickly: learning the projects, meeting the people, finding her bearings, helping plans acquire names, dates and next steps.

So it is me again. Apparently, the first lesson in handing over a journal is knowing when to pick up the pen.

And I am glad to have a reason to introduce her properly.

Hanin Azizah is Director, Indonesia at Kintsugi Gallery. She leads our work in the country, bringing together cultural partnerships, publishing, production and the conversations through which a gallery becomes part of a place.

A title gives you the outline. I would like this letter to leave a little room for the person.

There is a moment in a story when someone new arrives and the map begins to change. A path you had passed without noticing becomes a road. A distant light turns out to be a house, and there are people inside. I think about Hanin's arrival in that way: the beginning of relationships we cannot yet put on a calendar.

Our ambitions in Indonesia are large. They concern books and paintings, the SHI book and game, exhibitions, voices, and encounters between people who might otherwise never share a table. For any of this to take root, we need to listen as carefully as we speak.

Hanin brings experience in communication and broadcasting, storytelling and public speaking. She works in Indonesian and English. In the gallery, that experience has a very human purpose: helping an idea find the words, the setting and the company in which it can come alive.

Think of a book finding its way into another language. The pages travel, but so do the questions inside them. Someone must ask how those questions sound here, who might want to read them, which publisher or conversation could give them a home. That is part of the work we are beginning together.

There is much to learn. There is also the pleasure of beginning: a new colleague, a new place, and a future still loose enough for a good conversation to change it.

I want Hanin to have room to shape that future with us. Her role includes building relationships with Indonesian artists, cultural institutions, publishers, producers and the media, and speaking for the gallery in Indonesia. She joins a story already in motion, with her own voice and a real part in deciding where it goes.

For now, consider this Wednesday letter an introduction across the table.

If you are in Indonesia, or your work brings you here, Hanin is the person to speak with about Kintsugi Gallery. An exhibition, an interview, a publishing idea, a possible collaboration, or simply a thoughtful beginning to a conversation: you are welcome to get in touch.

→ Meet Hanin Azizah — Director, Indonesia

→ Contact Hanin through the gallery

Please put “Indonesia — Hanin Azizah” in the subject line so your message can be directed to her.

The journal began with a frog and a circle on the water. Since then, those circles have carried us through paintings, music and a book. This week, there is another person at the water's edge.

Welcome, Hanin. I am happy that we get to see what happens next, together.

Every Wednesday, another stone. Another ripple.

— Denys Rzhavskyi