Curators tour shines light on the rich diversity of Indonesia arts
In this article, CIRCUIT founding director Mark Williams reflects on his experiences in Indonesia as part of the Foundation’s Curators Tour 2025, joining seven fellow New Zealand curators to learn about Indonesian art and make industry connections. Together, they explored galleries, visited artists’ studios, and experienced ARTJOG — Indonesia’s leading contemporary art festival.
The curators visited both private and public galleries, as well as artists' studios
With key locations such as Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Ubud packed into seven days, the Curators Tour programme was as a whistlestop tour of Indonesia’s contemporary art scene, designed to introduce the Aotearoa cohort to key institutions, makers and current themes in local practice.
At each venue we were welcomed with remarkable hospitality, which we acknowledged through the sharing of waiata and the exchange of gifts.
Once we began visiting art spaces, it became immediately apparent the different strata occupied by private and public institutions in Indonesia.
At Museum MACAN, a sprawling installation by Bandung-based artist Kei Imazu occupied the same floor as works by artworld superstars Jeff Koons and Yayoi Kusama. At the Museum of Fine Art and Ceramics, a collection of Indonesian 20th century paintings hung in an aging building unprotected from Jakarta’s high humidity.
The curators got to get out and about and explore Jakarta, finding some interesting scenes along the way
There are, in total, just two publicly funded contemporary art museums in this sprawling nation of 250 million. In this context, how do contemporary artists sustain their practice?
The next day we visited Gudskul, an artistic hub based in South Jakarta housing screen printing, waste upcycling, a children’s art space, and a video screening room.
In each space, we were greeted by the artists, including Farid Rakun and Ade Darmawan from Indonesia’s most well-known collective Ruangrupa.
Farid and Ade generously shared insights from almost 25 years developing artistic networks locally, nationally and across the world. Affirming diversity as strength, Farid noted "There is no one imagination".
Visiting arts collective Gudskul in Jakarta
After lunch the group split up for an afternoon of self-directed research.
I took a taxi with two fellow curators to film and video collective Forum Lenteng. Programme manager Yuki Aditya gave us a tour of the purpose-built facilities which include a cinema, editing suites, a library and temporary accommodation for visiting artists.
Two young film-makers were packing up equipment to record sound for a film. Yuki explained that part of Forum Lenteng’s activities includes a free six-month programme that educates youth not only in film production but also Indonesian cultural and political history.
I had met Yuki previously at international events in India and Europe, but Forum Lenteng’s activities suddenly made a lot more sense in their own context. As I leave, Yuki says “We should work together”.
Mark: "At each venue we were welcomed with remarkable hospitality..."
On the evening of day two, we met a cohort of ten emerging curators selected by the Jakarta Arts Council.
We ask about the role of the past in the present for their generation. While one curator describes art as way of rebuilding identity after occupation, others differ over whether young people are interested in history. We learn this is further complicated when motifs of Indonesian art and culture have historically been co-opted to present a uniform, nationalist image of Indonesia.
In Yogyakarta we arrive just in time for the opening of ARTJOG, an annual event in the city's art calendar, which this year presented the work of 50 artists and collectives across four sprawling stories of the National Art Museum.
Several of the artists drew on archival materials as the basis of new works.
Enka Komariah’s Monumen Kekalahan (2025) features a series of paintings drawn over government documents relating to alleged communist sympathisers.
In Maharani Mancanagara's interactive installation Paturong Ing Lelayu, Tembung Ing Isining Ati (2025), the artist re-voices the diary of her grandfather, a teacher detained without trial in Koblen prison between 1966-1978.
Visiting galleries in Bali
ARTJOG featured a dynamic snapshot of different practices across Indonesia.
The opening installation by Anusapati featured train tracks, a coal wagon and trees whose branches burst through the ceiling; elsewhere, a communal workshop led by Ruangrupa showed participants simply gathered around a table.
The day after the opening, we had coffee with one of the curators, Bambang ‘Toko’ Witjaksono.
Toko described ARTJOG as “an Art Fair for Artists”, based in part on an open call process. He explained this year’s theme amalan sought to imagine artistic practice as an act of goodness.
One of the featured artists in ARTJOG was the senior practitioner FX Horsano.
The day after ARTJOG, we were treated to a visit to FX’s studio, where the artist showed us his 2011 work Monumen Bong Belung.
The work consists of a series of wooden boxes stacked in a large circular rotunda. Each box houses a photo, printed names and flickering candles, each a memorial to Chinese Indonesians.
Mark: "ARTJOG featured a dynamic snapshot of different practices across Indonesia."
On our last studio visit in Yogya, we meet half a dozen members from Lifepatch, a collective of 19 members drawn from fields of art, science and technology, including artists, researchers, designers, farmers.
Like so many collectives we met on this trip, Lifepatch seem to occupy a hybrid of domestic and studio space.
In one room, an artist working at a computer explains that they have actually left Lifepatch and formed another collective.
Members of the group share a recent project, a copy of a Pustaha—a manuscript of magical formulas, divinations, recipes, and laws from North Sumatra.
Discovering Pustaha’s on Ebay and in museums, the group was now seeking to understand the original language. They had copied the text to a new publication, which they handed to us, and which, like the original, was printed on softened bark, folded in concertina.
The group visiting the famous Borabudur temple near Yogyakarta
Outside of these contemporary art spaces, the trip was bookended by visits to Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, Merdeka Square and Yogyakarta’s’s Borabudur—sprawling sites of Indonesia’s cultural, religious and political memory.
Most of the artists we met in Indonesia operated at a less ambitious scale. But, the case for art’s role in historical reckoning and repair was made at ARTJOG in the wall text for Enka Komariah’s work:
“Historical events are often examined by artists because the space of history reminds the imagination… about what is considered fact and truth… According to (the artist), these series of events deserve to be commemorated, and can instead be called a 'monument'.”
The Foundation's arts Programme brings Asia into the mainstream of New Zealand arts by inspiring New Zealand arts professionals to grow their connections and knowledge of Asia. It also supports the presentation of Asian arts in partnership with New Zealand arts organisations and events.
The Foundations curators and programmers tours offer New Zealand arts sector decision makers the opportunity to visit Asia to learn about the creative scene of a selected host country and make industry connections.
