SESSION 2: CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH RELATIONSHIPS

Establishing a culture of creative collaboration

FORMAT OF THE SESSION

• Introduction by Dr Michelle Antoinette (ANU)

• 2 x 2 parallel 20-Minute Workshops

• Workshop A: Academics (Michelle Antoinette, Elly Kent, Wulan Dirgantoro)

• Workshop B: Artists and art conservator (Ria Soemardjo, Tintin Wulia, Selina Halim)

• After the first round of workshops, there will be an opportunity to switch groups

THEMES• First round of workshops:

• Personal experiences

• How to equip oneself with the necessary cultural understanding?

• Local counterparts and research collaborations

• Second round of workshops:

• Problems and ideas

• Local infrastructure for the study of art and culture

• Tools to establish and maintain networks, meet new collaborators, make collaboration work and grow

• Use of on-line archives, social media, face-to-face contacts

• Advice from art practitioners about how to engage the general public in Australia and Indonesia

1. SHARING EXPERIENCES

• How did you equip yourself with the necessary cultural understanding?

• Who are your main counterparts in Indonesia or the region?

• Are they involved in the teaching of art and culture?

• Are they involved in research on art and culture?

• Have they received research and teaching training from abroad?

• Have you worked with them in joint research projects?

• Have you worked with them in joint research seminars?

• Have you worked with them in joint publications?

2. PROBLEMS AND IDEAS

• How can networks be established, maintained and made to grow?• Do your counterparts have access to libraries or archives?• Do they have their own websites and online archives?• What are their sources and networks of support?• What have been the main obstacles to their activities?• How could Australian universities, academics, artists, journalists,

governments and businesses provide further support?• What can researchers learn from art practitioners to engage the general

public in their work?

STATE OF THE ART

• The study of art and culture in Indonesia relies heavily on the initiatives of NGOs, art collectives and media organisations with an interest in the politics of art, culture and everyday life

• Local and international researchers have observed a lack of intellectual depth in the Social Sciences and Humanities, and the almost complete absence of the teaching and research of art history and Cultural Studies at Indonesian universities

• Juliastuti, Nuraini and Antariksa, 2002, ‘Sejarah Cultural Studies di Indonesia’, http://teguhimanprasetya.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/sejarah-cultural-studies-di-indonesia/

• Heryanto, Ariel, 2005, ‘Cultural Studies’ significant others: the case of Indonesia’, Antropologi Indonesia 29 (1): 1–15.

• Knowledge of culture and art is essential to the social, political and economic objectives of regional autonomy/decentralisation (one of the pillars of Indonesian democracy) and the creative industries (one of the pillars of Indonesia’s economic growth)

DEMAND

AVAILABLE RESOURCES

• Cultural Studies scholars and departments (UI, Gadjah Mada, Sanata Dharma, Universitas Udayana

• Independent research and documentation centres

• KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (Yogyakarta), Indonesian Visual Art Archive (Yogyakarta), Kompas, Tempo, Journal Kajian Budaya

• Art spaces, communities and festivals

• ruangrupa/Ok.Video festival (Jakarta), Common Room/Nu-Substance festival (Bandung), The House of Natural Fiber/Yogyakarta International Videowork Festival (Yogyakarta)

HONFAB LAB, YOGYAKARTA: COMBINING ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

THE HOUSE OF NATURAL FIBER: WINNER OF TRANSMEDIALE.11, BERLIN

• Vocalist, musician, composer

• Born in Melbourne of Australian/Indonesian descent

• Song writing and collaborative projects inspired by Javanese musical tradition

• The only Australian female exponent of the Javanese classical vocal style

• Trained in Central Java

• Performances with gamelan groups around Australia

RIA SOEMARDJO

• Installations, murals, interactive / participatory performances and video

• Reflections on the theme of ‘borders’

• Her work is part of public and private collections in Asia, Australia and Europe.

• Participant in major international exhibitions, including the upcoming Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane

• Australian Postgraduate Award for practice-based research PhD in art at RMIT University

• Represented by Osage Gallery, Hong Kong

TINTIN WULIA (MELBOURNE)

INSTALLATION DETAIL FROM ‘INVASION’ (TINTIN WULIA, 2008)

• PhD thesis on the artist’s body in Indonesian contemporary art

• Research interests: Southeast Asian contemporary art, contemporary craft, cross-cultural collaborations, museum studies, popular culture and gender studies

• Co-author of Indonesian women artists: the journey continues (YSRI, 2007)

• Curator of ‘Intimate Distance: Tracing Feminism in Indonesian Contemporary Art’, National Gallery of Indonesia (Jakarta, 2007)

WULAN DIRGANTORO (UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA)

• BA Fine Arts (Painting, Victorian College of Arts), MA Cultural Materials Conservation (Painting, the University of Melbourne)

• Founder of the private conservation practice Art Clinic, Jakarta

• Museum-standard conservation services and consultancy to private collectors and museums

• Previously affiliated to the National Gallery of Australia (Brisbane), Museum Victoria (Melbourne), the Heritage Conservation (Singapore)

• Articles on conservation in the Indonesian magazine Visual Arts

• Presenter and committee member of the Asia Pacific Twentieth Century Art Research Network (APTCCARN)

SELINA HALIM (ART CLINIC)

ART CLINIC, JAKARTA

• PhD candidate, School of Art, ANU

• Research on the proliferation of participatory practices amongst contemporary artists in Indonesia

• Lived in West Timor on an AusAid project and worked as a translator and researcher for a variety of arts organisations and institutions in Australia and Indonesia

• Assistant curator of ‘Beyond the Self – Contemporary Portraiture From Asia’, National Portrait Gallery (Canberra)

• Asialink residency at the Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA) in Yogyakarta (2010)

• In 2013, she will begin field research in affiliation with the Institut Teknologi Bandung’s Product, Culture and Environmental Research Centre

ELLY KENT (ANU)

• ARC Postdoctoral Fellow , School of Cultural Inquiry, Research School of Humanities and the Arts

• ARC research project on the rise of new cultural networks and networking strategies in Asia

• Contemporary art and art museums as key indicators of cultural change within Asia's proliferating cultural economies

• Forthcoming book (Rodopi) explores the emergence and representation of contemporary Southeast Asian art on the international stage since the 1990s

DR MICHELLE ANTOINETTE (ANU)