kbarokka [at] gmail [dot] com
'Expect to laugh, to think, to greatly admire this artist.' - ABC
Okka is represented by Abi Fellows at TGLA. abi [dot] thegoodliteraryagency [dot] org
BIO:
Khairani Barokka is a writer, artist, arts consultant, translator and editor from Jakarta. Okka’s work has been presented widely internationally, and centres disability justice as anticolonial praxis, environmental justice, and access as translation. She regularly teaches, mentors, and consults for arts organisations, and has a PhD by Practice in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London. Among her honours, she has been a UNFPA Indonesian Young Leader Driving Social Change, a Delfina Foundation Associate Artist, an Artforum Must-See, and Associate Artist at the UK’s National Centre for Writing. She was the first Poet-in-Residence at Modern Poetry in Translation, and later became the magazine’s first non-British Editor. In 2023, Okka was shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in the Arts and Culture Category.
Her books include Indigenous Species (Tilted Axis), Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches, as co-editor), Rope (Nine Arches), Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches), shortlisted for the 2022 Barbellion Prize, and 2024’s amuk (Nine Arches). Her nonfiction debut, Annah, Infinite, is forthcoming from Tilted Axis Press in 2025.
Picture in black and white of Okka writing in Indonesian on a paper floor with a pen. She’s wearing a patterned black and batik dress, with short hair and black and silver earrings. If you’re using this image, kindly credit photographer Derrick Kakembo.