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Artists' Initiatives and Cooperation |
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The workshop Fixing the Bridge, which was organised by Cemeti Art Foundation and supported by ASEF in December 2003 in Yogyakarta, gathered together independent artists from Asia and Europe. There is an implicit understanding among artists and cultural workers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia that if you want things done, you've got to do them yourself. Our respective art communities are still in their early stages. National institutions and their "white elephant" venues have not yet established proper working systems. Therefore, this reinforces the need for artists to rely on the strength of the individuals to carry out their projects and ambitions. Insufficient national support, funding, patronage and infrastructureare constant. The economic development, the promotion of tourism and the focus on technological information and communication developments have superceded the value of local arts and cultural development. One of the most successful and highly-regarded independent efforts to have emerged from this region is Cemeti Art House in Indonesia. Initiated by husband and wife artists, Mella Jaarsma and Nindityo Adipumomo, in Yogyakarta in 1988, the name has become synonymous with the development of contemporary Indonesian art. Its longevity has become something of an anomaly in a sector defined by short-lived efforts, setting the standard as the bastion for new expressions and ideas, promoting art-making within a political system that at a time made alternative expressions difficult. Coming this far was not without struggles. The money issue is recurrent along with other daily obstacles. While the venue is self-sufficient thank to the sale commissions from existing shows and their "stock room", the owners have had to plough in their own money from time to time. Their company's standards of "high quality expressions" have also led to numerous accusations of being hegemonic.
Due to the large amount of educational and documentation programmes generated by Cemeti Art House in the early years, a foundation, Cemeti Art Foundation (Yayasan Seni Cemeti), was set up to take on these responsibilities in 1995. This organization is independent from Cemeti Art House and gathers together a team of administrators and advisors thanks to the support of Prince Claus Foundation and local patronage. It is one of Indonesia's best catalogued resource centers of contemporary art. The Foundation holdsregular activities: an annual artist-in-residency programme, workshops, artist talks and discussions, and ongoing publishing projects. They publish a quarterly newsletter Swat, initiate translation projects of art theory in Bahasa Indonesia and publish a series of books on the progress of contemporary art in Indonesia. As national funding for arts remains scarce, Cemeti Art Foundation ironically provides training courses in art management and conservation with the help of foreign cultural bodies such as the Australian Cultural Affairs Department to local art managers and administrators working in cultural state institutions. They also run an internship programme where art managers and students are invited to train with the Foundation for three months in a year. Nowadays, many South-East Asian artists' initiatives are struggling with the question of developing alternative structures to make up for the general lack within their cultural environment. The need for greater autonomy, empowerment and control are grounds for the alternative stance. No longer content with the traditionally feudal structure of arts, artists seek plurality and eclecticism to reconsider the role of art and art-making.
Yet the question of sustainability poses one of the greatest threats to the survival of any artists' initiatives in the region. While international funding has come to the rescue of certain artists groups - for instance Big Sky Mind Artists' Project Foundation in MetroManila (the Philippines) has recently received some support from Prince Claus Foundation, and Ruangrupa in Jakarta is supported by The Netherlands' Ministry of Foreign Affairs Co-operation and Development through the RAIN artists' network and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten; many independent initiatives continue withtheir struggle to stay self-sufficient thus begging the question: "how are you able to sufficiently contribute to the development of contemporary art given such vulnerable conditions?" Foreign cultural centres such as Goethe Institut, Alliance Francaise, Erasmus Huis, The British Council, Japan Foundation, The Australian High Commission and other cultural bodies have in recent years begun "filling in the blanks" to make up for the lack of local cultural infrastructures. They have been actively supporting local art practices either by facilitating or by collaborating with young artists on various events and shows. Other unconventional projects such as artist-in-residencies programmes have also found the support of selected cultural bodies in the form of financial and administrative assistance, or through the provision of venues. Especially in Java, Indonesia, and Metro Manila, the Philippines, support for the visual arts by European cultural bodies is apparent. Small travel grants and educational exchange programmes overseas to acquire specialized skillshave also been made available. Opportunities for local practitioners or cultural workers to participate in important international forums and conferences are offered from time to time. While they may be small scale efforts, the relationships formed between respective culturalcenters and participating individuals or groups has cultivated an intimacy and understanding of the conditions in their locality.
Asian-European exchanges have taken place symbolically but can it happen realistically? Are artists from Asia and Europe working on equal grounds? As Narcisse Tordoir aptly describes, "the art world and art are two different things." The complexities of culturalpolitics and identity politics in the institutionalized global art world have held rude awakenings for Asian artists in the past decade. In the international exhibition enterprise and art discourse, many have found their works reduced to icons of representation; it is not about what the art work has to offer but to state its context and what it represents - the cause that the artist serves and the political or social struggle he or she is identified with. The vastly differing condition between those who have and those who have not needs to be addressed. Conflicting views and gaps between both worlds are obvious and difficult to bridge. It would appear that Asia has been consistently offered an inferior seat in this quagmire. Can we at least claim that we were its benefactors at least as much as its victims? Perhaps what needs to be questioned is how reciprocity can be achieved in view of differing priorities and concerns. We know that meaningful exchange requires the investment of time, consistency, and the agility to formulate new strategies to translate interactions into useful sources of information and reflections without falling into the danger of extreme tourism. Differing temperaments, methodologies and visions therefore need to adapt to different working processes. We also need to acknowledge that certain things can happen in certain places but cannot be successfully reproduced in others. Continued dialogue, open interaction and an acknowledgement of plurality will hopefully encourage further knowledge of one another. The question which remains to be answered is this: can we seek a middle ground and acknowledge the differences between working models, people, and ideologies? How do we mind the gap?
Adeline Ooi is a curator and an art critic. She has recently led a research on art community in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
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