This fall, Nieuwe Instituut, Museum Het Schip and the Indonesian Gudskul present the project Arus Balik - Shifting Currents, an initiative that brings together architecture and design networks between the Netherlands and Indonesia and connects their diasporas, recognizing architecture and design as tangible witnesses to the colonial past. How can we re-map the legacy of design between the Netherlands and Indonesia, and how can this lead to new paths? What does a European-classicist villa have to do in a city like Jakarta? And how, in turn, did "Indian" ornaments end up on the facades of porch houses of the Amsterdam School? What did architect Berlage hope to discover during his study trip to the East? And in the twenty-first century, how do we look at the visual language of designers 'between cultures'? Since the colonization of Indonesia, the development of the archipelago in Southeast Asia and that of the Netherlands have become closely intertwined. The shared story - of four hundred years of violence and inequality in one respect and inspiration and exchange in another - is reflected in design on both sides of the ocean. This is also reflected in heritage collections such as the National Collection of Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning that the New Institute manages. With the program Arus Balik - Shifting Currents, the initiators want to shift the usual flow between the present and the past. Nieuwe Instituut, Museum Het Schip and art platform Gudskul are joining forces. They are approaching shared histories and networked designer heritage 'against the current' as the starting point for an interdisciplinary search for the words, tools and visual language with which we can express the past and the common future we aspire to.