Jakarta Biennale Fosters Hope for a Better Future
By Laine Capshaw
The National Awakening Museum film installation. Photo: Jakarta Biennale website
The Jakarta Biennale opened on the twenty-first of November after a one-year postponement due to the pandemic. Founded in 1974 under the title, ‘The Great Indonesian Painting Exhibition,’ the Jakarta Biennale has aimed to promote a participatory and culturally enriching experience for its citizens and visitors. The Biennale has historically sought to educate its guests with interactive and collaborative art projects that engage with the urban landscape of Jakarta, simultaneously placing the city and its nation among a wider global contemporary artistic community.
The theme of this year’s Biennale, taking place in both the National Museum and the National Awakening Museum alongside outdoor public spaces, comes from the Indonesian word besok meaning ‘tomorrow’. Reiterated as ESOK, the theme hopefully turns towards the future in guiding humanity through a post-pandemic world. Artistic Director of the exhibition Dolorosa Sinaga takes an activist stance in her call for contemporary art to function as a universal tool committed to radical social change. The Biennale includes thirty-eight artists and organizations from Indonesia and across the globe. Here, internationality confronts diversity of media and collaboration through a number of art projects.
Prima Milawati, Growing Survively, 2021. Watercolour on paper. Photo: IDSBA website
The Biennale welcomes the Indonesian Society of Botanical Arts in collaboration with several botanical artists including Yogakarta native Prima Milawati. Using watercolor, her photorealistic series rendering of lantana flowers can be seen in a light-filled room at the National Museum. A celebration of Indonesia’s biodiversity casts a hopeful light on the future of the nation with this display of its natural elements. With a keen sense of environmentalism in mind, the exhibit inspires its patrons to ponder their role in combating climate change in an effort to keep these elements alive for a better tomorrow.
Maharani Mancanagara, Susur Leluri 2021 multimedia installation. Photo: artist website
At the National Awakening Museum, Bandung-raised mixed media artist Maharani Mancanagara hosts an interactive installation, inviting visitors to participate in a card game paired with a video storyline. With Susur Leluri, viewers make their own decisions in the card game, which determines the outcome of the video element of the piece, wherein a fabled story of a deer named Cikal represents a fictionalized personal reflection on the political turmoil in Indonesia during the years 1965 and 1966. This narrative metaphor asks the viewer to think deeply about their own relationship with time as an agent which inscribes history. Susur Leluri, while investigating individual sovereignty as a historical tool, tasks the past with formulating the future.
The National Awakening Museum film installation. Photo: Jakarta Biennale website
The entire exhibition will run through until the twenty-first of January 2022. A weekly film screening program takes place at the National Awakening Museum in conjunction with other installations. The Biennale will culminate with an International Symposium in January, titled ‘Art Activism & Ecosystem In A Changing, Hyperdigitised World’.
Bibliography
Jakarta Biennale. "Jakarta Biennale 2021: ESOK." Jakarta Biennale. Last modified 2021. Accessed November 29, 2021. https://jakartabiennale.id/.
Mancanagara, Maharani. "Susur Leluri." Maharani Mancanagara. Accessed November 29, 2021. https://mancanagara.com/exhibition/jakarta-biennale-2021-esok/.
Indonesian Society of Botanical Artists. "Exhibition Details." Indonesian Society of Botanical Artists. Accessed November 29, 2021. https://idsba.com/2021/05/17/876/