BIENNALE JOGJA is an international biennale focusing on fine arts, held every two years since 1988. Since 2011, Biennale Jogja works around Equator 23.27 degrees North Latitude and South Latitude. Biennale Jogja develops a new perspective that also opens itself to confrontation over the ‘establishment’ or conventions over similar events. The equator is the point of departure and will be a common platform for ‘re-reading’ the world. Biennale Jogja is organized by Yayasan Biennale Yogyakarta (YBY). YBY also held the Equator Symposium which was held in the same year as the Biennale Jogja.
Biennale Jogja Equator series: 2011 – 2021
YBY is determined to make Yogyakarta and Indonesia more broadly as locations that must be taken into account in the constellation of international art. In the midst of the dynamic global art field—stensibly inclusive and egalitarian—the hierarchy between the center and the periphery is still very real. Therefore, the need for intervention becomes urgent.
YBY envisions a common platform capable of refuting, interrupting or at least provoking the dominance of the center, and giving rise to alternatives through the diversity of contemporary art practices from an Indonesian perspective.
Starting in 2011, YBY will organize BJ as a series of exhibitions that depart from one big theme, namely EQUATOR. This biennale series sets certain geographical boundaries on planet Earth as its working area, namely an area that stretches between 23.27 LU and 23.27 LS. In each of its implementation’s BJ works with one, or more, countries, or regions, as ‘partners’, inviting artists from countries within the region to collaborate, create, exhibit, meet, and dialogue with Indonesian artists, groups, arts and culture organizations in Yogyakarta.
This journey around planet Earth around the Equator begins by walking westward. Biennale Jogja did not start this journey towards the East because it realized the limited knowledge about the Pacific and even the archipelago itself. In addition, YBY, which was only established in August 2010, has a deadline to carry out the XI Biennale Jogja in 2011.
The regions or countries around the Equator that are planned to cooperate with BJ until 2021 are: India (Biennale Jogja XI 2011), Arab Countries (Biennale Jogja XII 2013), Countries on the continent Africa (Biennale Jogja XIII 2015), Countries in Latin America (Biennale Jogja XIV 2017), Countries in the Pacific Islands and Australia, including Indonesia as Nusantara (Biennale Jogja XV 2019)– because of the peculiarities of coverage of this region, BJ XV can be referred to as the ‘Sea Biennale’ (Ocean Biennale), Countries in Southeast Asia (Biennale Jogja XVI 2021). BJ Equator series will conclude with the EQUATORIAL CONFERENCE in 2022.