Kedai Kebun Forum, Yogyakarta
I am writing this post from Rotterdam with 2 days of jetlag and a 25-degree temperature drop shocking my system. Still, the buzz and warm embrace of Yogja linger on. The moment we landed at Yogyakarta’s airport I was transported back to the smells and scenes of my childhood- having spent many a summer in Indonesia. I feared that whatever I would write would be tainted by a tinge of nostalgia, but the art scene in Yogja is too dynamic and too contemporary to allow itself to be boxed in like that. Selemat datang di Yogjakarta! In Jakarta Carla Bianpoen urged me to try the gudeg in Yogja, a traditional dish made with jackfruit (nangka), palm sugar (gula djawa) and coconut milk (santen), served with rice and chicken. I have to admit that I was not courageous enough to try it for breakfast – being vegetarian it was primarily the chicken that put me off – but I did have many pieces of delicious pisang goreng (fried banana), which at our hotel were strangely topped with grated cheese. Not a bad combination. Later in the day Lissa and I explored the goods in a local bakery, and skipped the pain au chocolat with – yes again – grated cheese. I did have a nice cheeseless chocolate bun, though.
Our first stop of the day was Kedai Kebun Forum, an alternative self-funded art space with a bookstore and excellent café, run by Agung Kurniawan. KKF runs a thematic program, and this year the focus was on crafts. The exhibition space showed projects related to printed matter and publishing an artist himself, Agung showed us a project he participated with in the recent Kwangju Biennial, Adidas Tragedy (2009-2012), a series of customised Adidas sneakers and their matching boxes addressing places of tragedy. From Cambodia and Tienamen Square, to Ramallah and Egypt.
Later on we sat down for freshly squeezed fruit juice – I had guava – with Yustina Neni, Agung’s wife and the director of the Yogja Biennial. Yustina explained to us that for the coming decade the Biennial will focus on the topic of “equators”, not only resonating political and historical references with the non-aligned movement that Indonesia was part of, but also going further back in history and revisiting the clove routes. Its previous editionconcentrated on India and was co-curated by Alia Swastika and Suman Gopinath.Coming editions will focus on Africa and the archipelagos of the Pacific Islands. But first things first, 2013 edition will reach out to Egypt, U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia. 3 artists from Indonesia will undertake production residencies in respectively Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia, to produce new work, while their Arab colleagues will be hosted in Yogja to make newly commissioned work.
Yustina Neni, director of the Yogja Biennial
As Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, the Biennial is interested in exploring notions of what Islam means today, which stereotypes are being perpetuated, and how art(ists) can break with this. Hmmm…well that will definitely kick up some dust. Interested to see how that will translate from the the Gulf and North Africa to Southeast Asia. The main elements of the Biennial are a comprehensive exhibition, a symposium, and perhaps most importantly a series of parallel events involving students, local communities and emerging artists.
Nat Muller
Cemeti Art House
Since 1988, Cemeti Art House has been actively promoting and stimulating practices in the contemporary Indonesian art scene and art practices on a wider international platform. More than ten projects, such as site specific, community based exhibitions, presentations, and performances involving local and foreign artists, writers, and art activists, have been realized each year.
Artist’s talks, project presentations and group exhibitions are presented locally, as well as internationally, as well as our monthly indoor curatorial exhibitions at Cemeti Art House gallery. They include ‘ART OF BAMBOO’ in 2002 (Indonesia and Danish artists), ‘CHOOSE YOUR OWN PUBLIC’ in 2005 (Indonesian artists), LANDING SOON RESIDENCY PROGRAMMES from 2006 through 2009 (local and Dutch artists), ‘TRADITIONAL PERFORMING ART ADVOCATION PROGRAMME’ in 2007 with Ford Foundation support in five villages, ‘THE PAST FORGOTTEN TIME’ (Indonesian artist), a travelling project at The Hague, Amsterdam, Jakarta, Semarang, and Shanghai in 2007.
Introduction to Cemeti by Mella Jaarsma
Contemporary art in Indonesia can be seen as a form of concern and reflection of artists’ views related to issues on developing society. Through their work, artists honestly respond and often criticize a very specific social phenomena and bringing an aesthetic perspective to the discussion, whilst others may express their individual and personal approaches to their realities. Being bond and stuck to particular media disciplines becomes a less crucial issue.
In 2010, Cemeti Art House launched a new platform in which activities will revolve around and focus on reinventing ‘Art and Society’, emphasizing more alternative art practices that honour the ‘process’, rather than the ‘promotion’.
The Cemeti Art House exhibition space which was designed by architect Eko Agus Prawoto in 1999, highlighting the local – global, traditional – modern, art – non art, individual – collective, natural – manufactured, crafted – industrial, conventional – innovative as the paradoxes reflected in its architectural construction, is transforming into an open studio suited for workshops, displays , discussions, and fulfilling but critical learning.
Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta
Cemeti, space
Cemeti Art House and Studio will gradually undertake an ideal and strategic role mediating dialogue by focusing more on the research process of each party, where curators, writers, art critics, art activists, and artists meet each other in our residency programmes.
Sankring Gallery, Yogyakarta
Indonesian Visual Art Archive
We were picked up at 17.45 by I think 8 rickshaws to go to the Indonesian Visual Art Archive to meet up with the local art scene.
These were the invited guests: Eko Prawoto, architect, artist / Yoshi Fajar Kresno Murti, architect, activist, IVAA / Anggi Noen, film director / Salahudin Siregar, documentary filmmaker / Yudi Ahmad Tajudin, theatre director, Teater Garasi / Joned Suryatmoko, theatre director / Jompet K, artist / Eko Nugroho, artist / Heri Pemad/Seto, art manager, ArtJOG / Bambang Toko, artist, ArtJOG
Wok The Rock, artist, music producer / Naomi Srikandi, stage actor, theatre director / Venzha, artist, HONF / Yustina Neni, director of Biennale Jogja Foundation / Alia Swastika, curator
Nindityo Adipurnomo, artist, Cemeti Art House / Mella Jaarsma, artist, Cemeti Art House / Farah Wardani, IVAA / Dian Anggraini, Yogyakarta Art & Cultural Council (Governmental institution) Syafiatudina, Kunci Cultural Studies Center.
Although not everybody who was invited was present, a lot of people came and after a brief introduction by Haco we all told who we were and the guests did the same. Luckily, because this had not been always the case, especially not in China. After that we got a few presentations by very different artists. We started off with puppet theater that was very much about communication with the audience and retelling stories that had not been told for a long time because they could not be told before. The most striking was that very different practices came along, not only visual arts. Like the Teater Garasi or Salahudin Siregar, who is a film director, but it wasn’t very clear whether he made documentaries or short films, as he said that they were documentaries and that he wanted to play with the border of doc. and fiction. But the fragments were short and puzzling. Another presenter: Wok the Rock, who calls himself an artist and music producer, does projects wherein he asks people for their favorite album and their profile photo and statement which he then burns after getting the file with a bit torrent from the internet and shows it in a sort of jukebox installation with an iMac under the title ‘Burn your Idol’. His projects are all copy-left and he is also okay if people copy his idea, if they only mention his name, so he tries to be as copyleft for his projects as possible it seems. He also produces music that can be downloaded for free as well, all copyleft.
We had food in between and after a lively event with a lot of thunder and rain we got to the last presentation of the IVAA. The Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA), formerly called The Cemeti Art Foundation, is a non profit organization, which has a huge archive online which contains information on works by artists (and curators), documents, photographs, audio files and projects that they have been taken part in. A great resource on the Indonesian art scene. What was really nice was the flexible, relaxed and open atmosphere in contrast to especially China. At the end at 20.30, we walked back to the hotel. It was raining again, rainy season is about to start.
Petra Heck
Orientationtrip 2012 