The House of Natural Fiber/HONF Foundation is a creative community of artists, DJs, physicists, hackers, architects, scientists, makers, activists, expert users, and designers who test the possibilities of media art to address critical social issues through science and technology while pushing the boundaries of art and individual authorship. Founded by Indonesia Institute of Art (ISI) graduates Irene Agrivina, Venzha Christ, and Tommy Surya in 1998 as a place of open expression, art, and cultural technologies, HONF emerged from the energy of the people’s movement that led to the fall of Suharto’s “New Order” regime. Responding to the context of political corruption, poverty, cultural repression, and nepotism, HONF began as an office, exhibition space, and laboratory conceived as “a place to share ideas and to make something real with a purpose and use for people and their environment.” Rather than focus on a static membership and a leader, this community shifts focus to timely urgencies, and active participation changes on a project to project basis.

Community building, cultural development, science, and new media art are at the core of HONF. Pursuing scientific research from different disciplines and applying DIY (Do it yourself) and DIWO (Do it with others) methodology, HONF produces interactive public works that respond to the particular conditions of Indonesia within the context of the larger world. They have collaborated widely with colleagues in Europe, Asia, and the Americas and function as a cultural laboratory of interdisciplinary knowledge exchange both locally and globally within their Education Focus Program (EFP). Directed at youth and newcomers to new media strategies, EFP is a guideline curriculum that applies critical analysis towards local and global issues to produce innovative ideas to seek solutions.

In response to the 2006 earthquake in Indonesia, HONF began to research the possibility of affordable, locally-made, bamboo prostheses. Together with Yakkum Rehabilitation Center, Yogyakarta, and Waag Society/Fablab, Amsterdam, HONF began The Low Cost Prosthesis Project in 2009. With one third of Indonesia’s population living in poverty, the need for affordable prostheses is growing, with amputations on the rise. The objective of this project is to use technological advances in 3-D printing to produce a self-adjusting lower-leg prosthesis for under US$50. Their collaboration led to the formation of HONFablab/Fablab Yogyakarta in 2011 and continued research with Yakkum Rehabilitation Center and Waag Society towards a marketable product.

After the volcanic eruption of Mt. Merapi in 2010, HONF detected dangerous contaminants in the Code River that runs through Yogyakarta, but locals continued to use the water in their daily lives. By hacking expensive water filtration systems, HONF created a simple DIY system involving coconut palm fibers, gravel, and stones that is easily replicable, and taught local residents how to produce their own filters for everyday use. As their contribution to the “2012 New Museum Triennial: The Ungovernables” in New York, HONF presented IB:EC (Intelligent Bacteria: Eschericia coli): The Song of the River, an installation involving projected images from four microscopes that magnify bacterial microorganisms in contaminated river water samples and plants connected to a sound system. Together with high school students from City-As-School, HONF constructed a version of their purification system during a workshop on the importance of access to clean water. To demonstrate the filtered water’s purity, HONF fed five fern plants with this water and amplified the electromagnetic energy emitted from the ferns’ fronds, transformed into sonic waves.

In a country where the GDP per capita in 2012 was US$3,551.42, the threat of cuts to fuel subsidies led to HONF’s ongoing project Micronation/Macronation: Democratizing the Energy. At its core are three components: fermentation/distillation machines, which can transform hay into ethanol; satellite receivers for obtaining data related to agricultural production, such as weather, climate, and season conditions; and super-computers for processing data about agricultural conditions, ethanol production, and food and energy sustainability levels. Micronation/Macronation can be described as “action research”—creating added value to the agricultural process, by transforming the hemicellulose found in waste from rice paddies into alternative energy in the form of ethanol. The project is meant to generate affordable renewable energy sources to secure energy independence for Indonesia.

While diverse in shape and scale, House of Natural Fiber’s practices celebrate grassroots-level fluidity and ingenuity, the very things denied by the rigid formal institutions of the establishment. By involving diverse stakeholders, they help inspire and encourage an ecosystem where proactive, collaborative problem-solving increasingly becomes the norm. Presenting important issues through artwork, HONF reaches a broad audience despite the often-technical, inaccessible nature of the