Description

What happens when you invest in young women in tech? 🌱

Through The Data Garden Project, Joanne Amarisa transforms everyday conversations into visual art, using creative coding to explore relationships, emotions, and community.

It all started with a simple but powerful idea—Joanne documented a month’s worth of WhatsApp conversations with her mom and turned them into a digital garden. The result? A stunning reminder that data isn’t just numbers—it’s a storytelling tool.

But beyond the code, this project is about something bigger: when you uplift one woman, she brings others with her.

Joanne joins Billy Adison Aditijanto on The Perantau Podcast to talkabout how data, creativity, and community come together to empower young women in tech. While anyone can learn to code, what truly matters is how you use it—whether it’s through stitching, drawing, or writing, it’s all about making sense of the world in your own way.

This episode is predominantly delivered in English.

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Transcript

Billy: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, I’m Billy and welcome back to the Peranto Podcast, the show where we spotlight stories from Australia’s Indonesian diaspora. Today we are joined by Joanne Amarisa, a creative professional who transitioned from studying at RMIT to now working at a medical research institute, making waves in both her professional and creative pursuits.

Now Joanne is the founder of the Data Garden Project, a space that empowers young women through creative coding and storytelling. Thanks It started out as a university project. So it’s been an exciting few years for Joanne and the team. So now the question is, how has it panned out exactly? And what’s next for this innovative project, but it will also be talking about if Joanne’s cultural identity as an Indonesian shapes her work and the lessons she’s learned about building communities in a dynamic multicultural city like Melbourne.

So without further ado, let’s welcome Joanne. How would you describe your [00:01:00] Relationship with Indonesia.

Joanne: I’d say warm. 

Billy: Warm. 

Joanne: Yes. 

Billy: Okay. How do you mean by warm? 

Joanne: When I think of Indo, I think of just all these like, tables, like big feast style tables, and my family gathered around it. And that’s always the permanent image of Indo for me. I feel like if Indo flashes at the end of my life, not to be too morbid, within 10 seconds of the podcast episode, but that would be what’s imprinted there.

Um, you know, and yeah, and I feel like every time I come across images of Indo, um, Even get the Instagram and like all of these like destinations nature and all of that and I miss it really dearly Um, I [00:02:00] think even the stuff that we have in Australia in my view at least it just doesn’t hit the right It just doesn’t hit the same way And I think it is that kind of warmth that I feel inside when it’s like wow That is that is my home and nothing like wherever I am in the world.

Yeah I feel like that’s a title that will not be replaced by any other place. 

Billy: Wow, very reflective. 

Joanne: Thank you. I was taken aback because that’s a different question. So, what was in season one? Yeah, no, I think, 

Billy: yeah, okay. Whenever Tell anyone that unless, unless they’ve heard the podcast itself, it’s just like a nice throwball, a throwaway ball that I give at the start, just to catch people off guard.

Did it catch you off guard? It 

Joanne: did. Yeah, okay, so it did the job then. Yeah, yeah. 

Billy: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Now, speaking of reflective, Sarakan, you came here, um, was it 2018? Yes. 2018, yeah. So you came in 2018 as a student at RMIT. Yeah. [00:03:00] Since then, uh, well, you’ve transitioned from being a full time student to now full time work as a social media and content advisor at another organization.

So how, how was that transition like for you, Gayle? Like, were there any unexpected challenges or surprises that was thrown your way? It was like, was it as you expected? that you learned at uni, or like, was there anything that you picked up and you were like, Oh, this was actually helpful in my work now, or was it the complete opposite and you were like, I don’t think uni prepared for me, prepared this for me at all.

Joanne: Right. Um, I think lots of surprises. I graduated in 2020, which is a fun year to graduate in. Um, so it was COVID obviously. Were you here? 

Billy: Yes. So 

Joanne: I lived in Melbourne throughout all of that. You know what? It really bonds you, like it really attaches you to the city to be here. Throughout COVID, um, like, so my final year was in isolation.

[00:04:00] Um, thankfully, my friendships were by that point, like, well formed enough that we kind of, like, traversed through that together, even remotely. Yeah. Um, But in terms of my transition from studying to working, I would say that, you know, my expectation of uni was always, I’ll get into an internship in my final year and, you know, really cool office job straight out, you know, straight out of graduating.

And I’ll get all these job offers, like lining out the door. And obviously that wasn’t the case, um, both in terms of like, that’s not, that’s very rarely the case for most people. Um, but also COVID. State of the economy and the state of jobs and all of those things really played kind of quite a formative role in just like my experience of just entering the workforce in general.

Um, so what happened was I remember. Probably two weeks after my last. So I never took an internship, um, during [00:05:00] my final year because of COVID. Um, but I had a side gig as a photographer and videographer throughout all my years of uni. Um, and at the time I remember feeling like, man, like, what am I doing?

I’m like, am I missing out on stuff? But it turns out those were the skills that got me the, you know, corporate or like the office jobs, and those were the skills in demand that organization saw in me that. You know, um, prompted them to like, take me on as part of their team, if that makes sense. So, um, my final year, I remember two weeks after my last class, I already had like a stack of resumes in a random shopping center and I’m like, I need a job, I just need to like, yeah, yeah.

So that was like survival mindset for, for you kicking in. Right. So I, yeah, I applied to like a bunch of retail stores, got to not one, but two, you know, different like retail assistants. Jobs. Um, and I was just like, great. Now I have something to do. And the transition to my first, [00:06:00] uh, office job was actually in one of those retail stores.

Um, and I was just doing like customer service. You know, love the stuff. Um, and then basically I put that on my LinkedIn that I was a retail store assistant. I was like, do you put this kind of stuff on LinkedIn? But I did anyway. And someone from that company, their head office was hiring and someone in their marketing team.

Um, they saw that I, you know, Oh, there’s this girl who works in this store that we have. I had the skills that they wanted. Photography, videography being some of them. Um, And, yeah, and eventually, like, the rest was history, so they reached out to my, felt like being scouted in a way, so, like, they reached out to my store manager, sent me a text, within a month I was hired, and so it was like, it was all just kind of serendipitous, like, from there, but I think what that taught me was mainly that, you know, um, undermine the small stuff, and don’t, like, undermine the opportunities that look small, but if you just kind of [00:07:00] As long as you remain open about things in general, I feel like it’ll take you to where you’re meant to be anyway.

Billy: Yeah. Yeah. And like, yeah, funny thing is like, talking about LinkedIn, and I just want to put this on the record because I think it’s just funny. Uh, because like, you sent me a LinkedIn connection request, right? I was like, oh, you seem cool. And then I was like, do I know you? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

But then I was like, I just want to check, right? Because like, half the time I just forget. Right. I was like, I don’t want to, because I wanted to have you on the podcast anyway, because you sounded cool. But then I just didn’t want to, I just wanted to check if this would be the first introduction or not.

Right. Do you get what I mean? Because like, imagine if we’ve met before and then I was like, Hey, I looked at your profile and I think you’re cool. Do you want to come? I was like, I want to just check 

Joanne: just in 

Billy: case. So I was like, if we did meet, like play it off or something. Then I was like, ah, so, well, we haven’t met.

So hello, nice to meet you. You’re 

Joanne: welcome for [00:08:00] making that first introduction. No, but I think I did like send that connection request to you because I saw that obviously like our, our paths of. Like careers really kind of like had a lot of similarities. Yeah, exactly. But also the fact that you were part of kind of that uni male space and there’s, it’s rare that, well, not super rare, but it’s like, um, Yeah, it’s like I always jump at every chance of like seeing a fellow Indo in the Unimel space in general.

So it’s just kind of like, oh, wait, and yeah, I still do that to this day. So yeah. Yeah. And here we are. And 

Billy: here we are. And I guess that’s how I approached the job too. It was like, well, I just, I just reach out. Right. It’s like, 

Joanne: I 

Billy: mean, I guess the tagline that I’ve been using. with people has been like, you know, everyone has a story to tell.

It’s just a matter of asking the right questions, right? It’s like, so many people talk about it, it’s like, Oh, I don’t think my life’s that interesting. It’s like, I don’t think I’m that interesting. I think I’m pretty boring and everything. But like, Well, the fact [00:09:00] that you’re, might be a bleak, bleak way to say it, the fact that you’re still alive now, you’ve probably done something to say.

Joanne: I was like, 

Billy: well, that’s one way to put it. But, you know, I was like, well, that’s, I guess that’s the main point, right? It’s like, everyone has, um, I guess, unique things about themselves that make them stand out just a little bit more than anybody else. And, well, for you, I guess the main thing that stood out was DataGarden Project, right, DGP.

Um, and that’s kind of what I want to get into. Today, I guess, I’m just like, so. Before we get into it, could you just talk me through what inspired you, what the origins of it, because I think the tagline was like, empowering young women through creative coding and data storytelling, right? That’s sort of the tagline that you used for DataGarden project.

So could you talk a bit more about, well, how did it come to be and why? 

Joanne: Yeah, can I talk about what it is first? 

Billy: By all means. 

Joanne: So the DataGarden is a community and a resource that aims to teach Young girls [00:10:00] and women, like you said, um, about data storytelling, and we do that through creative coding. Um, and I say it that way because, um, it is not just coding.

Um, so, obviously, um, you know, that’s how we started and that’s the language that we started speaking. Um, but, um, It’s more to do with the fact that so how it works is, uh, you we invite people to basically do what we call a hunt and gather. So you hunt and gather data from your own personal life. And this is hugely inspired by a project called Dear Data.

And I suggest you looking that up too. And that’s by Georgia Luby and Stephanie Posevich, who are both like incredible designers. Um, but yeah, so, um, How it works is that we invite people to go on this hunt and gather and gather data from your own lives. It can be a week of playlists you listen to or interactions with friends and family or, um, your commutes or, you know, food you ate, whatever, that [00:11:00] Um, resonates with you on a personal level.

Um, we teach them how to develop that into a data set with all the data points in different categories. And then we encourage, like, and then we kind of give them the tools and the guidance to be able to visualize it and tell. That story in a way that is personal. That is meaningful to them. Oftentimes it is coding.

Um, so we use P five. J s, which is the kind of, uh, programming language that we use. Um, but it’s not always coding. We’ve seen people illustrate their data. We’ve seen people embroider their data. And so in a way, it is about, um, storytelling because that’s that’s what I am. I’m a storyteller at heart and by trade.

Um, but it’s, it’s really about encouraging that learning. Through community and being able to kind of really facilitate peer learning in such a way where you’re being introduced to this new tool, uh, that being coding or technology in general. Um, but through actually [00:12:00] really ancient practices and understandings of art and of storytelling in general, and it’s just, you know, scrapbooks of your own life, right?

If you think about it, um, and then sharing that with a safe community and a supportive community. Um, so that’s who we are. Um, I would say the initial spark for it was during that final year that I had in COVID, I took 

Billy: that year of isolation, that year of 

Joanne: isolation. Exactly. I was, I was living alone at that time too.

So, um, Yeah, I took design. I studied communication design at RMIT. It was my final year and I took, um, an elective in coding. Um, we got in about maybe two classes in that course before everything shut down. And so the rest of it, we really learned online. There was no, um, I would say coding wasn’t as advanced as, so like, for example, right now you have GitHub and then you have like Copilot.

So you can actually like. You know, write code and have AI next to you, like telling [00:13:00] you what your code should be. Um, we didn’t have that tool just yet in 2020. And so our co pilot was my actual lecturer and, you know, she was the one who we would email at 11 p. m. at 12 a. m. Like, you know, consecutively. And like we really leaned on.

Our friends, our peers and our mentor to be able to really produce the artwork that we meant to create. Um, and it was that whole experience, really. Um, it was the fact that when I look back on that project, um, I realized that, oh, I learned this, you know, entirely new tool, entirely new language. You know, through community and through support like that, the project I made is called, um, a Garden of My Mother’s Concerns.

I don’t know if you’ve come across it or in our, you know, previous chats. Um, and basically I visualized a month’s worth of WhatsApp conversations. Will that ruin your audio? 

Billy: We can give it a few minutes. Uh, a few seconds. , [00:14:00] 

Joanne: if this goes on all night, that would be funny. So the project that I was creating, um, it was basically I visualized a month’s worth, so 30 days worth of conversations on WhatsApp with my mother during the first month of lockdown.

And I visualized it in kind of a garden metaphor using You know, creative coding. So p5. js. Um, so it was like entirely JavaScript. Um, no HTML CSS yet. But, um, yeah. And so that was my artwork. And, um, I was really happy with it. And I’m proud of it. And I just, yeah, that was, I think the spark wasn’t so much that I can code now, but it was so much, um, it was more to do with the fact that my, um, Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lecturer who is now my mentor. Her name’s Karen and, um, she created such a safe space to learn and fail and learning it like coding. Is that right? Like you just keep hitting at it like hit run and it fails. I hit run again and hit run again. Right? And so I think the iterative process of that also [00:15:00] helped with like just feeling really safe in the learning process.

Yeah. Um, and that’s what I wanted to replicate and emulate to other young girls and women. I could have gone two ways. Um, I could have gone either. I want to be the best at coding and I want to create, you know, and I want to be so good at generative art. Or, um, I can take this little knowledge I have around, you know, creating data stories with code and just replicate it and share it with as many people as I know.

Or maybe, you know, just share it with my friends and give them the tools to be able to do it too. Because, you know. If I could do it, then surely they can too. And that was the route that I took and that was the data garden. 

Billy: Yeah. And how’s it going so far? 

Joanne: Um, it’s going really well. So that was, yeah. So that was 2020 that I got.

Um, that idea 2021. I entered the workforce, as I mentioned, and, um, it was actually, um, in 2021. I had a gap where, um, basically, you know, we had [00:16:00] weeks without work because of just like how things were, um, and that’s what actually prompted me to, you know, submit the data garden into a micro grant, um, uh, program at the time.

Um, and it was by Blackbird VC, who’s, um, Sydney. Um, so Blackbird Foundation, um, was giving like little grants for like passion projects by young people submitted ours and won it and we were, we were part of like the first ever kind of, uh, cohort of that, of that, uh, grants program, which is really exciting.

And it was also very validating because it, to like, up till then, I didn’t have anything to do with the daughter garden out there in the world. It was just kind of like up here. Um, so that was 2021, 20. So we developed, um, modules. I like kind of recruited this really small team of peers from RMIT. And I was like, okay, I’m going to write out this like step by step guide.

You guys follow it. And if it works and if [00:17:00] you get, you can create what I, um, you know, what I’m hoping people can create. Then it works and they did. And so I was like, okay, it works. 

Billy: So that was like the pilot project. 

Joanne: Yeah, exactly. So, um, I was like, okay, cool. So our curriculum works and it’s understandable enough.

And, um, yeah, and basically 2022, I replicated that into YouTube and created like all of these. So those steps became YouTube tutorials, um, from, and it was like six modules. And so it was like quite an undertaking. And I did that throughout the year. 2023, we were accepted into the Processing Foundation Fellowship, which was huge as well because they, these were the people who created p5.

js essentially and wrote p5. js. And so I felt like in terms of knowledge, it stretched us so much. Um, but also just, you know, the networks and mentors that we cross paths and are still warm with to this day. It’s just irreplaceable and it was like really game changing for us. And so, yeah, and so that was, [00:18:00] um, 2023 and with their.

Um, with their support, we were able to make basically create the module so that it can live. Now it lives in a notion kind of hub. And so that, uh, the idea is that for every student and every teacher who teaches computer science or data or storytelling or whatever, from whatever angle to be able to adapt what the data garden offers into their own classrooms and into their own communities.

And so that hub lives online now, and it’s a resource that Can be accessible to anyone. Um, yeah, yeah. And so that’s kind of like our journey and up to this point. And in 2024 after, you know, three really packed years, we were able to run a workshop this earlier this year. We taught a class on a smaller capacity at VCA.

Um, I did that with one of my partners in DGP and, um, yeah, I guess in this later half of the year, we’re kind of taking our chance to kind of quiet down a little bit and figure out what we want to do. Next year. [00:19:00] Um, 

Billy: yeah, now, so for 2025, you were talking about coming in fresh with a rebrand. Um, and I know you want, uh, to make that announcement your own.

Um, and of course, I respect that. But what kind of things could we expect and why? 

Joanne: Um, it’s, I think, as a founder, and this is it. By the way, like relatively, even though Dada Gardens have been going on for what, three and a half years now, it’s only recently that I kind of marked, like registered to myself that, Oh, I’m a founder and I’m a leader in this project.

Now we’ve got a sizable team, both in us, like Oz and in Dojuga. And I was like, okay, like, you know, um, So, you know, how do we how do we do this? Um, but I think what I wanted to highlight was that as a founder, you don’t hear a lot of like, you know, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of stories of founders like digging gold, right?

And, like, really striking the next milestone. The next momentum. You don’t hear as many [00:20:00] stories of founders like just taking the time to rest and taking the time to really recalibrate and figure out where you want to go strategically. Um, and so But yeah, I, I find that really important, um, especially this year with a lot of other things, um, at play.

Um, I came to a point where I was like, I came to the realization that if I, if you have to choose between advancing your cause or like, say your health or yourself, then set like some, there are some moments where you do have to choose yourself because you can’t advance your cause if you’re. Not, like, if you’re not poised to be in the game, if that makes sense.

Tell me if I’m, like, being too ambiguous, but I guess, yeah, so through a lot of conversations with my team, I realized that we needed to operate differently, and I’m really excited because next year, um, I want to, [00:21:00] kind of, um, strengthen our roots, I should say, in both the Um, Melbourne and Indo specifically in do because I think that, um, you know, I like, I don’t think anything I do will be removed from from that.

Um, I have team members who are there who are really committed to, you know, our cause as well. Um, and it’ll look like basically just Becoming like making them more of my partners in this journey. Um, it’s a lot to do with, um, like transferring that ownership, um, to, so that the daughter garden and how it evolves is not just the daughter garden is Joe’s thing, but it becomes kind of our thing collectively.

Um, I think that’s, that’s it. 

Billy: As far as you can go? As far as I can go. 

Joanne: Um, yeah, [00:22:00] but we’re really excited. So I think it’s gonna help us to really, one thing that I can probably share is that I am confident that we’ve outgrown The project in our name because, um, when I started it, project was, you know, Oh, I’ll do this project.

I’ll make a little club and I’ll, you know, learn with other people and, and friends and see if they like it and hope they like it. Um, but the truth is like. We opened our Discord a couple years in, people are coming in from Mexico and Spain and Italy and Nepal and all of these other places in the world.

It’s outgrown and outsized that name for it to be like a project with a finish line. I think it has, um, and I think we have cultivated it together to become something that sustains far longer and something that creates even more of a legacy for other communities, not just ours. Um, And so my mentor gave me this analogy.

It’s like you got to think of it as you’re no longer just like kind of [00:23:00] watering and cultivating your own garden. But if you think of it as taking root and being able to like, like transfer and, you know, like sprout elsewhere, that’s the success. And that’s more of what we want to see. 

Billy: Yeah. Yes. And well, since you brought up, um, you know, taking a minute to rest and reset and to reconnect with your roots, um, especially strengthening the connection between Australia and Indonesia, I guess that really ties into our, well, to my next point of conversation.

Like, how does, does, does having that Indonesian heritage mean much to your work now? Do you find yourself in having much of an influence in how you approach your work, your perspective on things, and how you, say, approach problems or approach solutions or, you know, finding opportunities where other people might not have, uh, might not have the foresight to see that, right?

So does having that Indonesian heritage influence much of your work, at the very least with DataGarden Project? 

Joanne: I would say [00:24:00] so. Um, I think, um, I see this in both theater garden as well as just my work in general. Um, I have a strong inclination to, I would say, like, amplify, like, you know, a diverse set of voices that aren’t even mine.

Um, because I am from Indo, but my experience is not, you know, We’re not monolithic, like my experience is not like, doesn’t represent like the vast experience of like, Indodiaspora and you know, people coming in to live here. Um, but I think like, I always have this strong inclination to like, Yeah. Amplify voices.

They’re unheard, but I’ve had that like for years, even before I started like any kind of desk job, you know, or corporate job. And it was, and I think that has to do with just being brought up in a country that, and thankfully my parents also well exposed me. So kind of like, you know, um, you know, groups of groups of, um, You’re welcome.

Friends and families who come from, you know, they can come from really different, um, [00:25:00] like ethnic backgrounds from you or socioeconomic statuses and all of these different things. Um, and that’s what makes Indogetakan the beat. Um, and we always make it a point to like, To do right by them. Um, and it’s about justice and storytelling.

And it’s about, because if you think about it, storytelling has a lot of power dynamics to it. Someone is deciding what stories get told. Someone’s deciding how stories get told. And you probably know this as you’re a storyteller yourself. Um, And so I take that with a lot of weight and a lot of responsibility.

Cause I’m like, yeah, like I need to think about it from every possible angle. When we’re like early on in my career, I was working with a nonprofit too. And I was like, well, we’re, you know, talking to these children who, you know, live in poverty in this kind of rural area, um, somewhere in Indo and Eastern Indo, I remember.

And I’m like, well, I want to create content that does, that does And even though they won’t see the final product, maybe, but if [00:26:00] they did, I want to make sure that they feel they’re well represented. And so I always have that, like, lens wherever I go. And I think that’s, yeah, that’s, I think that’s important to have as a storyteller.

Um, yeah. Yes. Does that answer your question? Yeah, no, I think, I 

Billy: think that answers it perfectly. Now, well, I guess when it comes to your own full time job, again, we won’t say where, um, but yeah, I guess going back to your full time job. Aside from DataGarden project, but like, you know, because I think you did say, you know, being Indonesian in that regard doesn’t mean much because well, it’s not Indonesian related work or things like that, right?

Um, does that also influence your, your approach to storytelling when it comes to creating social media content for other organizations? 

Joanne: Yes. Um, so other than what I mentioned, which is kind of like amplifying like voices, right? Um, I mean, Yeah, I think that was, that’s pretty much it. And I think I, [00:27:00] um, I just kind of like try and strive for excellence wherever I can.

Like, I think I’m, I’m kind of hardwired to do that. Maybe like subconsciously, given that you come from such a long way to make it here. Um, the fact that we’re kind of waving the Indo flag wherever we go, you know, um, consciously or subconsciously, it’s okay. That counts for something. I think, yeah. Um, and, and, yeah.

Maybe that? 

Billy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Now, now looking at it from a, I guess a more holistic point of view, what DataGuardian Project 1, um, but as well as your other work so far, like you’ve dealt a lot with, you know, I guess building and sustaining communities, right? You know, building a network of people, both either in a professional sense or just in a casual setting.

So what I What are some lessons that you’ve taken away in terms of either unexpected, pleasant surprises, but as [00:28:00] well as challenges in building and sustaining communities? 

Joanne: Um, I think the challenge is kind of what I mentioned earlier, which is actually like making This baby, right? That you’ve kind of like raised, which is in my case is the data garden, making that not just like, oh, it’s Joe’s thing, but then it becomes like, how do I make this like a shared, you know, ownership type thing?

And that takes years and trust and time to build. Um, and sometimes the challenge is also that you just don’t get the thing like 2022. We filed in for, like we submitted, um, an application for the processing. Foundation fellowship and didn’t get it. And so that’s why I, you know, resort to YouTube and just like, you know, making all the stuff out there on my own time.

Um, and 2023, um, basically it took a phone call with my mentor before [00:29:00] I wrote my application again, not much has changed with daughter garden from like an organizational perspective, but she just kind of gave me all the pointers of like, I think what she told me actually was that. You need to lean into your strengths, and you need to lean into what makes you unique.

It’s not the code. Everyone’s talking about the, like, everyone’s talking about the code. Everyone there will know how to code, knows software. It’s not about that. And because I felt that like, oh, it’s a, you know, it’s a fellowship from like a software organization. Obviously I need to be really high tech and really like, you know, I, I want to be that.

And that was the facade that I was really ready to kind of build up in my grad application. But she was like, no, it’s the fact that you’re building up young women. It’s the fact that, you know, you’re taking us back to just this very, like, you know, um, But yeah, a simple part of like storytelling and you’re actually just like making scrapbooks about your own [00:30:00] life and you’re kind of like sharing it with friends.

But the, the thing is you’re just using code to be able to do that. Um, and it’s community and it’s all the stuff that you’ve got like down pat, but you’ve got to learn to own it. Like in your grant application, you’ve got to like really push that forward. And so it was just a matter of like, Um, I just like wrote it, wrote the application entirely differently to how I did it the year before, and that’s how we got it in 2023.

Um, so that was a lesson there. Um, the fact that, you know, when you enter a space, don’t feel like you have to like, you know, don’t feel like you have to, um, At least for me, it was like she was saying, don’t feel like you have to like, kind of be what everyone kind of like, don’t feel like you have to like mirror what you see from other people, but it’s, you got to hold your own when you’re kind of going into that.

My mom gives me that advice whenever I go into a job interview or whatever, it’s like, all of these, you know, especially being Indo, Gitukan being Indo diaspora, it’s like, [00:31:00] you want to be like, you know, um, you know, uh, yeah, you’re 

Billy: gonna 

Joanne: like, yeah, but you’re gonna, you want to. Blend in and just like be as much like part of it, but holding your own has, has power to it too.

Um, yeah, and I guess in terms of surprises, uh, like earlier this year, there was like a moment where, um, so when we did our workshop with M Pavilion, which is like this architectural site just across the NGV. Um, so we ran like a data stitching workshop basically. 

Billy: So what is data stitching? 

Joanne: So great question.

So this was spearheaded by my partner, May. Um, uh, and, uh, so she and I work together on the data garden and basically it’s, do you know those like embroidery hoops and circles that you kind of just like stitch stuff into and people make, you know, pictures out of, you know, these little threads or bees or whatever.

So it’s that. Um, but [00:32:00] essentially what we did was we gathered a group of people at the end pavilion. Um, Did you go there, like, when it was open? Have you heard of M Pavilion before? I think 

Billy: I’ve, what, at least walked past it a few times. Yeah, 

Joanne: yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, we gathered a few people in this kind of workshop at M Pavilion.

So we were at the site and what we did was we took this group of people to go around the garden that was across the NGV, um, and we were looking at trees. And so the philosophy behind it is that, um, I’m going to, like, Like allow me to yap. Okay, but basically, uh, we see data processing tools is like what our phones or the weather app or, you know, we see technology as things that are capable of processing data.

But what we forget is that humans are data processing tools to you and I are always processing information. Um, you know, stripping it down and delivering it to ourselves in a way that makes sense to us. And that accounts for like our life experiences as well in [00:33:00] general. Um, So that was what guided our workshop in the sense that when we went out, we would visit like kind of this set of maybe like 10 or 12 different trees around the garden.

We were literally like people like looking at trees. We were like botanists. We were like, Oh, what is the type of leaf or what is the type of branch? So two ways to measure a tree. You can look at it from its actual height, from the name of its species, the type of leaf, the type of bark, or you can look, measure it in ways that are like Do I think I can climb this tree?

Or like, how many times do I have to hug around this tree to be able to, you know, make a full circle? Or, um, do, you know, is there much, do I feel calm when, when, you know, um, standing below this tree? And the idea is that you’re processing not just measurable, you know, scientific data, but you’re also measuring data.

Your like data in relative to like your experience with the tree, if that [00:34:00] makes sense, so we guided them to like record all that data. We went back to the site and then basically we guided them to also like map. Each of those data points into like different colored threads. And so, for example, if the tree is tall, I’ll give it like a blue thread.

If the tree is short, I’ll give it a red thread or something like that. And what we’re actually teaching there, with no screens at all, is computational thinking, right? Because that’s JavaScript. If this, then that. If, if this is the data you receive, here is your output, right? Um, and so from there, people then get to visualize, yeah, visualize their recollection of the trees or their data set of the trees, um, using embroidery.

And so they, they were stitching. We spent a good hour just like stitching and putting beads and threads together. Um, and everyone went home with like kind of makeshift, yeah, visualizations of their, their day in the garden. Um, yeah. Visualized through [00:35:00] embroidery. Um, Yeah, and that was that was our workshop.

I forgot why I was telling you about this workshop. Yes, because so after we did all of that, what happened was, you know, shortly after my team would start to raise their hands and this were all happening in Melbourne. So my team in Jakarta. They kind of just like, you know, supported us remotely. They helped with content and things like that.

But shortly after what that happened was like, Hey, you know what? Like there is a space that just opened in Jakarta. Like we could do something like that. Or, you know, there’s a library that’s just opened. Oh, like they have this program and we can do that. And so what happens is, you know, uh, DataGarden kind of catalyzes this mitosis, right?

Of like, Oh, this can happen here. This can happen here. Um, there’s a community organizer in Hawaii who I, you know, who reached out to me earlier this year, she’s like, you know, I don’t know you, but I like what the daughter garden is doing. And, you know, I have this community and, you know, I do a lot of activism here.

I want to, you know, I want to do it the way you guys do it. How did you do it? [00:36:00] And so it was just a 45 minute conversation, but it was enough to kind of equip her and get her going on what she wants to do. So bottom line is that I would hope that we, the daughter garden becomes a case study, um, of what happens when you.

invest in young girls and women. There’s a quote, um, from, I think it was from like Care Australia. They had a campaign that said, when you lift up a woman, um, she brings four people with her. Um, and the idea is that, yeah, when you invest in the education of young girls and women, we actually really do take, you know, take up other people with us.

Um, and so I think I would hope that we become kind of evidence of that playing out. I honestly can’t remember what your initial question was, but I hope that Yeah, me 

Billy: neither. I 

Joanne: hope that, oh, 

Billy: it’s 

Joanne: valuable in some way, yeah. 

Billy: I feel definitely someone would find that valuable. Yeah. No, because like my head was thinking Okay.

[00:37:00] Um 

Joanne: Lessons, lessons learned. Yes, lessons learned. That was one of the lessons learned, yeah. Yeah, no, because 

Billy: my mind was, the entire time my mind was just going, um, how your mention said, it’s like, oh, it’s, uh, it’s not about the code, right? Um, and then my head is like, that, that would be like a nice, Okay. No.

No. line for like a sci fi movie, it’s like, it’s not about the code, it’s about you, you know, it’s like, it’s about the person, it’s about the soul. That’s what’s 

Joanne: happening in 2025 actually, it’s a DGP sci fi movie. Yeah, 

Billy: I think so. Uh, well, a side project maybe? Yeah, yeah. It’s like, it’s not about the code, it’s about, it’s about the person, it’s about the soul.

Um, but that is true though, because it is about the stories that you can tell, right? Because like, Not about the code, but then it’s really about what you can use the code for, right? Because like, then the code and the data is just a method of delivery. It’s just a medium, right? Because then at the end of the day, the stories are still the same, right?

Well, and that’s how I guess I view my own work. Well, the podcast is one, as well as my other work, where, [00:38:00] you know, the medium, The platform is just the medium, right? But then at the end of the day, the story is still the same, right? But it’s just a matter of how do you deliver it that could change the perception of it, right?

And how you, I guess, visualize it could also help you build your own identity or self healing maybe, depending on the person, right? Um, but yeah, I think that about wraps it up. I think that was pretty cool. That was a pretty nice conversation. I love DGP. We’ll see how we go in 2025. Hopefully many more years to come.

Um, but yeah. Thank you. 

Joanne: Yeah, no worries. Thanks for having me. 

Billy: All right. That wraps it up. 

Joanne: Cool. 

That’s probably [00:39:00] overtime.