»The Right to do Nothing« is a sonic-fiction about non-productive time, a story of Indonesian domestic migrant workers in Hong Kong who are trapped in an ultraterrestrial dimension where the situation between productivity and non-productivity is reversed. In this place, migrant workers receive their wages by being unproductive—they are paid to sleep and »nongkrong« (an Indonesian word that literally means »sitting around because there is nothing to do« or »hanging out because you’re not doing any work«).
Community radio mushroomed in Indonesia after the fall of military dictatorship in 1998. Most of these initiatives were run by labour unions that broadcast labour rights and radio dramas, promoting revolutionary literature and theories on syndicalism, as well as a mix of hybrid music from speed funkot to indigenous bamboo music. Inspired by the second generation of Indonesian labour community radio, such as the women worker-run Marsinah FM, »The Right to do Nothing / Hak Untuk Malas« is a reflection of the transformation of community radio, which for decades has been part of the aesthetic experience of nonproductivity for migrant workers in Hong Kong; a friend of their free time in Sunday when hanging out in the harbour listening to the series of radio (melo)drama and mix of eclectic sounds while »nongkrong.«
With »The Right to Do Nothing / Hak Untuk Malas,« musician and filmmaker Riar Rizaldi presents an experience of the world where nonproductivity blooms and where the sense of time is not reduced to a mechanical clock, through an imaginary soundscape of a place without work.