Elia Nurvista & Ayos Purwoaji
“Territorially speaking, the high seas belong to no one – and so when it comes to exploitation, they belong to everyone.”
– Ocean Atlas
Considering Oceania
After collaborating with many artists in the Southeast Asian region, Biennale Jogja XVI Equator series will work with the artists from the Oceania region, also known as the Pacific region. Indeed, the imminent collaboration will be challenging because currently we are unfamiliar with this region and rarely talk about Oceania in the cultural discussions in Indonesia. When the modernization and the paradigm of continental thinking have pushed aside our maritime cultural bases, it is always much easier to imagine Indonesia as part of Southeast Asia than to identify ourselves as part of an archipelago network that is directly connected to island countries in the Oceania region. In fact, geo-anthropologically, the people in the eastern part of Indonesia, including West Papua, the Maluku peninsula, and the islands along East Nusa Tenggara, have diverse genetic and cultural variations closely resembling those of the Oceania.
The intersection of cultural history between some regions of Indonesia and the Oceania region can actually be traced back to thousands of years ago, namely from the early migration of the explorers of Melanesia, the sailing routes of Austronesian sailors, the traces of cave paintings in North Australia, the arrival of European traders, the cracking of long colonialism, various scientific expeditions and religious missions, the World War II, to various contemporary geopolitical issues that occurred in the last half-century.
Through the long, close contact, Indonesia and the Oceania region are bound with the same language families, arts, beliefs, gastronomy, mythology, and perhaps similar problems. For example, hundreds of thousands of Kiribati residents are about to lose their land as the rising sea level is ready to submerge their islands. Meanwhile many indigenous communities in Indonesia are also displaced as the forests in which they live are depleted for development programs. Currently, thousands of residents of the Republic of Nauru depend solely on international donors after the phosphate was completely dredged. On the other hand, several areas in Indonesia were also devastated by extractive industries which left nothing but environmental damage. This list of problems might be longer, further proving that Indonesia and the Oceania region shared the same social problems. Getting to know each other requires solidarity which is expected to build a collective awareness of the said common problems.
From Indonesia’s point of view, talking about the Oceania region leads us to dig into a grand narrative on the history of human migration over time, the discovery of cartography and landscape changes, the shift from traditional spirituality to modernity, as well as the threat of environmental crises on coastlines that are hardly accessed. Those potential problems are veiled under the comforting touristic tropical islands that seem to offer tranquility, hiding the threatening forests and active volcanoes.
Between the Oceania and the Pacific
In the middle of pandemic with limited movement between regions, we conducted an initial research employing literature review and dialogues with figures who knew the Oceania. Through the initial research, we understand that the term “Pacific” is quite problematic since it is closely related to the western hegemony. In his essay, the Fijian scholar Epeli Hauʻofa noted that the word ‘Pacific’ just appeared after the World War II and was popularized by the Allies. The terminology continued to circulate during the Cold War era to characterize the regions stretching from the Mariana Islands (north) to the New Zealand (south), and from Papua New Guinea (west) to the Hawaiian Islands (east). Looking at the shape of the earth in a map, the region called the Pacific is an expanse of blue sea that connects the dispersed small islands. In fact, the islands are bordered by imaginary yet forced territorial lines that separate one island from another. The residents of Guam and Samoa islands have the United States citizenship; the residents of French Polynesia and New Caledonia are France’s citizens; while the Maori and Aboriginal people ended up being guests in their own land to date.
According to Epeli Hauʻofa, the geopolitical labeling meant nothing to the local residents and only served the Western interests in the region. He mentioned an example of Banaba Island residents who had to surrender their land to a British Empire-owned phosphate mining company and the residents of Bikini Atoll who were displaced as their territory was used as the United States’ nuclear test site. For these superpowers, surrounded by the vast blue ocean, the Pacific islands are merely the middle of nowhere that is tranquil, isolated, and ready to be exploited as they please. Like the products of cartography, geopolitical labeling is never neutral nor innocent. They are the product of ideology.
Based on such understanding, we began to question the term ‘Pacific’ and prefer to use ‘Oceania’ instead. Ocean, for the people of archipelago, is not a dividing border, but a connecting bridge instead. Ocean is an entity that shapes the culture and identity of humans living within. Epeli Hau’ofa added that the Oceania identity refers to the idea of an interconnected and borderless community, whose all cultural aspects are the product of the continuous interaction between humans and the surrounding ocean. This perspective will also open up the possibility of a progressive expansion of the Oceania identity that it might cover much wider regions and more communities than what had been covered by the term ‘Pacific’.
Perhaps the so-called oceanic identity has a meaning that is almost similar to the term “maritime culture” that is known but forgotten in Indonesia. It is a culture embracing openness and equality, allowing the imagination of a fluid territory and shared resources that is driven by a common understanding that no one can partition and own the oceans. However, this article will not go further into the maritime culture because that concept requires a complex layer of understanding and we deliberately try to avoid establishing a single definition of it. It is because the perceptions of the ocean and ocean culture may differ between Gunungkidul people, Madurese fishermen, Bajau Laut people, or the population of Niue Island. They might as well see the ocean as a trade route where commodity and cultural exchanges take place, as a living space managed in a communal manner, and even an exotic place attracting tourists. But one certain thing is, the oceanic identity or maritime culture should be able to go beyond all forms of an insular, narrow-minded, and closed-minded thinking. On the contrary, it should encourage a free, open, and interconnected thinking.
Not only the oceans, we also take into account the volcanoes constituting the landscape of Oceanian islands. The configuration of mountains and oceans serves as an imaginary orientation for the formation of the cosmology and knowledge systems of many cultures in the two regions. And thus the people understand that the nature is the most essential factor in human culture. When the nature changes, so does human history.
Tracing and Mapping Issues, Questioning Decolonization
To talk about the Oceania region, one should not employ the perspective of a museum which showcase only the material aspect of a culture or even put it into superficially exotic touristic brochures. The people living in the Oceania region do share the contemporary, social, economic, and political problems, such as the indigenous’ increasing awareness of cultural heritage, the efforts to decolonize the way of thinking, reclaiming the territorial regions, and fighting for social positions; the complex issues of migration, remittances, and internationalism; climate change and global warming that threaten the region’s life and sovereignty; and imposed modernization that shift the spirituality and the traditional ways of life.
Through some problems above, we would like to assess and requestion the recent understanding of the decolonization concept. Similar to Indonesia, the Oceania region was colonized by the Europe. However, unlike Indonesia, most of the colonized islands have not seized their own independence. The autonomous island countries are the commonwealth of European countries to this day. This leads to the uncertainty of identity. The Javanese descents in New Caledonia are mostly francophone; the communities of Indian descent who have lived for centuries in Fiji are still considered as vulagi or visitors; and every year on July 14, the local people in the Wallis and Futuna Islands celebrate Bastille Day. In addition, colonialism-induced socio-economic inequalities were still lingering and thus made several countries in Oceania economically dependent on donors or remittances from overseas workers. This phenomenon raised some questions about a nation’s sovereignty and a prolonged inferiority syndrome. In the midst of such reality, for the Oceanian people, the term ‘decolonization’ is a multi-layered concept that is difficult to unravel. What does decolonization mean for a nation that still depends on the colonizers and even enjoys the colonization?
It is the same when we look at what happened in Indonesia. The Eastern Indonesia has been encountering a lot of social and welfare inequalities due to the surviving practice of power identical to insular view of the New Order regime. It makes us see the non-Java area as the extraction zone whose natural and human resources have been being continuously exploited. Countless trees are cut down, the sea is polluted, and the ecosystem is torn apart for investment, economy, and development. Meanwhile, the voice of indigenous peoples fighting for their life is made weaker and the people are further excluded from their own land. Right from our own homeland, the jargon of decolonization shall be criticized: What does decolonization mean for a country that colonize its own people? What can decolonization do for the Mahuze youths who have to lose sago forests for the sake of developing a food estate? Perhaps it is necessary to put the spirit of decolonization in the image of an ideal homeland written by the architect cum humanist Y. B. Mangunwijaya as a place “where no one steps on other humans” and if the state violence continues, perhaps “it is better not to have a homeland”.
Sailing without a Map
For us, Biennale Jogja XVI 2021: Indonesia with Oceania is an attempt to create a map-less sailing route navigating between the past cultural history and various contemporary problems that connect the two regions. Sailing without a map does not mean roaming around. On the contrary, without using the existing maps and paths, we try to avoid the old perspective of reading, studying, and then exploiting a destination. It is like the sailors of Nusantara who relied on intuition, nature’s signs, luck, and recklessness in facing uncertainty. This kind of sailing offers surprises, joyous journey, and most importantly, humble conversations, stripping off the desire to colonize and dominate, so that it can clear new routes to sail in the future.
Without the old maps, we want to make Biennale Jogja a social stage and an arena to learn about each other and build a solidarity with the Oceanian society. Through the arena, we can exchange opinions and experiences on the collective identity formed by the archipelagic life, the struggle for a living space and sovereignty of cultural heritage, as well as the artistic practices from each region. Through the surviving local knowledge in various areas in both regions, we can look back at the understanding of nature and the ocean that is far more meaningful than mere materials to be continuously extracted.