20 OCTOBER – 30 NOVEMBER 2019
Biennale Jogja (BJ) is an international biennial event run by Yogyakarta Regional Government and organized by Yayasan Biennale Yogyakarta (YBY). It was first held in 1988, and this year it reaches its 15th edition. Starting from 2011, YBY launched BJ Equator series project focusing on the equator regions. YBY assumes the equator as a new perspective as well as opens itself up to confront the ‘establishment’ as well the convention of such events. Equator is the starting point and the common platform to re-read the world.
Why Southeast Asia?
Southeast Asia as a Perspective for History and Identity
The idea of holding an exhibition focusing on Southeast Asia does sound like a cliché as such an event has been continuously conducted. Regardless, it encourages us to see an alternative, namely the fact that Southeast Asia provides far richer potentials relevant to the global situation. Southeast Asia is not just a geographic region politically known as ASEAN.
The decision to choose Southeast Asia can further be used as means to establish the political positions of new regions which have long been deemed as marginalized areas.
What we discuss on the notion of “the periphery” is not merely refers to the the idea of place, but most importantly is about the subject or community that live within: the subjects who were not benefited from or suffered from economically or politically within a social structure. Therefor the subject on periphery is also appeared in main areas, because the periphery is an antagonist for “the center”. Shortly, the notion of the periphery here includes issues, life practices or subjects that are excluded from the academic discourse, public policy and media coverage. This will touch upon the matters of power relationships, how the subject of the periphery forced to be in face to face situation with the hegemonic power wherever they exist.
This opportunity can be used also for the peripherial subjects to imagine the region (Southeast Asia) and the global world. The term “southeast” Asia itself is not an generic term born by the awaraness of society to be seen as one region, but mostly shaped as the effect of the end of Cold War. There are evindents to prove that the relationship of societies in the region had developed way before the birth of naton state, including the establishment of borders between those states. The curators will not bringing a romantic perspective to reveal those traditional relationships, but to investigate impacts of post-colonial era and what happened after this establishment of nation states. The areas such Pattani and Sulu, for example, it is not an in-between territory, but places who try to differ themselves with the State that had claimed to be their “umbrella”. The tensions and battle of identity can be traced from their cultural or arts expression.
As issue, the notion of periphery can be extended to various problems in our everyday life: the gap of gender equality, the violence to human rights, labour and working class problems particularly related to migrant workers, discrimination based on race or religions, and many others.
EVENT SCHEDULE
The schedule of the Biennale Jogja XV Equator #5 2019:
Date: 20 October – 30 November 2019
Location:
Yogyakarta Cultural Park (TBY)
Jogja National Museum
Other places around Yogyakarta
Curators: Akiq AW (Indonesia), Arham Rahman (Indonesia), Penwadee NM (Thailand)
Akiq Abdul Wahid was born in 1976 in the city of Kediri, East Java. He is known as an artist and a curator. His artistic work consists of mostly photographs. In his work he frequently explores themes surrounding the everyday life of human beings, combined with how technological developments affects this daily life. He has been in numerous international exhibitions and biennale, individually and with the collective. He curated archive exhibition for Arsip!Fest held by Indonesian Visual Arts Center in 2017. Currently he is actively involved as a member of MES 56, a visual art collective.
Arham Rahman is an Indonesian curator and visual art researcher who lives and works in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He was graduated from Magister Program of Religious and Cultural Studies, Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta. During this time, he is working in several art and cultural communities, such as; Erupsi (Academia of Psychoanalysis, Art, and Politic), ColliqPujie Art Movement, Study on Art Practices (SOAP), and a curatorial studies and art criticism group, SPASI. Besides doing research on art and cultural issues, he writes and curate some exhibitions on some art spaces in Yogyakarta. Now he work as a curator on Lorong Gallery. He interest on Lacanian psychoanalysis discourse, post-colonial criticism, and other approach on cultural studies. In art studies, he interest on the discourse about Indonesian art history, the political economy of art, digital art, and contemporary craft.
Penwadee Manont was born in 1973, California, The United States of America. Lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand. She has a focus in Art and Culture dialogues along with interests in Social and Environment issues. Penwadee pursued both a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Communication Arts and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Management. She started her career as a Graphic Designer, and shifted to the field of Art and Cultural Management by working as an Assistant Curator at Project 304 alternative art space in 2001. Later, she became part of the Curatorial Team at The Jim Thompson Art Center, during 2007-2012..Her Curatorial Projects include the Mekong Art & Culture Project: Curatorial and Traveling Exhibition (2007-2008), supported by Rockefeller Foundation and Silpakorn University, where she was one of the four Southeast Asian Art Curators for the Underlying exhibition, from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. She also co-curated Poperomia/Golden Teardrop (2013). Penwadee founded ANTs’ POWER Art & Cultural Group, who are active on Human Rights and Democracy related issues. Research & Archiving Project includes The Exhibition History in Thailand from the 1970s to the Present, supported by The Asian Culture Center (ACC), Institute of Asian Culture Development, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Gwangju, South Korea. Penwadee worked as a Project Manager/Researcher throughout 2015.