Make friendship, it is art
On artists collectives engaging in the urban now
Judith Couvee, 1430637 judithcouvee@gmail.com
Prof. Dr. K. Zijlmans Dr. L. Bertens
MA thesis Arts and Culture: Art of the Contemporary World and World Art Studies, 2014-2015
Word count: 18.095
Table of contents
Introduction p. 3
1 The phenomenon of the artist collective p. 9
2 Artistic Practices in the Space Between:
ruangrupa’s intervening experiments in the urban space p. 21
Images p. 27
3 Reconciliation Between Opposites:
Huit Facettes Interaction’s interdisciplinary collaborations
and social interventions p. 29
Images p. 34
4 The Convergence of Time and Space:
Raqs Media Collective’s multi-media artworks and workshops p. 35
Images p. 41
Conclusion p. 44
Images p. 47
Introduction
The collective is back. In a world largely dominated by individualism and economic strategies there is a tendency to be discerned towards collectivity, participation, togetherness and
community. In response to individualization, the ever-growing gap between rich and poor, urban and rural, and the powerful processes of globalization, from 2000 onward there has been an increase of critical artistic formations that foreground collaborative and collective modes of production. Through partnerships, either permanent or non-permanent, artists aim to intervene in and respond to developments in their local and national environment, as well as on a
worldwide level, and to make joint works. According to Nigerian art critic and curator Okwui Enwezor, collectivization through artistic production tends to arise at moments of political crisis, and has therefore occurred throughout the history of art. Such crises often lead to a re-evaluation of artistic practices and a reconfiguration of the position of the artist in relation to
society.1 Colla
borative and collective artistic practices take various guises. Think of the artist run space, the artist project, the artist platform, the artist co-op, and the artist collective2, to name just a few forms of united labor among the many. The artist collective will be the focus of this thesis. Often engaging in an artistic practice that builds on local concerns, tackling questions of identity, history or globalization, collectives find new ways to assert themselves more effectively into cultural spaces and institutions. Related to the current political moment, it could be argued that the phenomenon of the artist collective is gaining strength. As a group, uniting different
perspectives and views, and sharing ideologies, the members are more able to effectively respond to the rapid changes in today’s social, cultural and political fields, while being involved in direct action at local levels, expressing an urge to relate practices of art to culture, society,
politics and experiences of everyday life. How do
artist collectives engage and intervene in urban, suburban and rural spaces, regarding changes in social, cultural and political fields? This question is central in my thesis. Researching different artist collectives, I will explore key concepts concerning their shared artistic practice, while emphasizing notions of transcultural exchange, critical and research-based art practice, art related to the socio-political context in which it originates, and art practice as an interventional process. It revolves around three artist collectives, namely ruangrupa from Jakarta, Indonesia,
1 Enwezor, Okwui, ‘The Production of Social Space as Artwork’, p. 225
2 Both artist collective and artists’ collective is a correct spelling. Here artist collectives will be used. The same applies to the other terms.
Huit Facettes Interaction from Dakar, Senegal, and Raqs Media Collective from Delhi, India.3 I will focus on the involvement with the urban space, as well as the treatment of participatory
interaction as a form of creative praxis, as the artist collectives emphasize these particular aspects. The aim is to research theories on the experience of the urban space and collaborative artistic practices, to create a dialogue between both these theories and the aforementioned key concepts, and the work of ruangrupa, Huit Facettes, and Raqs. Important to their form of art making are notions such as a plurality of roles, interdisciplinarity, progressiveness, being positioned in the center of society, and new ways of institutionalization.
Corpus
The past fifteen years more and more artists around the world have turned to collective ways of production, however, the subject is still relatively new to the art historical discourse, as no major research of the phenomenon has been done yet. Nevertheless, during my research I came across a few projects that are very worthwhile to mention. One of them is RAIN, the Rijksakademie Artists’ Initiatives Network. In the late 1990s and beginning of 2000 RAIN was initiated by former residents of the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, among them artist and director of ruangrupa Ade Darmawan. It is a collaborative experiment and a network of artist initiatives from all over the world, but mainly countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The participating groups see RAIN as “an opportunity to bring movement and energy into the individual, relatively isolated context and to unleash counter-forces within the global art domain – counter movements of artists from non-Western contexts who get a voice and build new ways of working and new strategies”4, and thus stimulating the exchange of art and ideas between artists on different continents. The network in association with the Rijksakademie has published two books, Silent Zones (2000) and Shifting Map (2004). Another project that
sparked my attention is the exhibition Kollektive Kreativität/Collective Creativity at the Fridericianium in Kassel, Germany (2005). Curated by the Croatian independent curatorial collective What, How and for Whom (WHW), the exhibition explored notions of communal work and collective production, with regard to contemporary art and discourse. It attempted to outline different forms of collectivity and group work, featuring both work of various artist collectives and collaborative projects between artists, including Gilbert & George and Guerilla Art Action Group. To accompany the exhibition, a catalogue was published, with contributions by Charles Esche, British curator and director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Angelika
3 From here on, an abbreviated form will be used in reference to Huit Facettes Interaction and Raqs Media Collective, namely Huit Facettes and Raqs, which is the popular version of their names.
Nollert, art historian and curator from Germany, and Viktor Misiano, curator and art critic based in Moscow, among others.
The words ‘collaborative’ and ‘collaboration’ derive from Latin, meaning as much as ‘to work with’ or ‘work together’. The heading of collaboration covers several art forms, all defined by the relationship between participants and the method of working, such as interaction and
participation. Researching this particular art practice is one of the perspectives in this thesis. The emergence of artist collectives often responds to the specific needs of a particular
infrastructure. They can be seen as a form of inquiry, as they often focus on non-object based art. Because of the way they are structured, namely, bottom-up and as a collection of different perspectives and backgrounds, artist collectives are able to engage in socio-economic problems, for example within the urban environment. Another perspective in this thesis is the experience of the urban and suburban space, as the collectives base their practice in the exploration of a relationship with their specific environment. Here, the term urban space is conceived as the major characteristic of a contemporary metropolis, namely, its crowded streets, loud traffic, omnipresent commercial advertising, the contrast between rich and poor neighborhoods, the urban and suburban area’s, and the specific cultures that arise from these characteristics that make up the bustling city. The artist collectives discussed in this thesis demonstrate an activist approach to urban reform, exemplified in their projects and the imagination of a different, more humane and creative city. Art is perceived as a way to reproduce and reinvent the dominant urban order, emphasizing its possible transformative role. Furthermore, the phenomenon of the artist collective reflects the engagement with contemporaneity, a term that refers to the fleeting present and the capability to be rooted in this very present. To work in conjunction with other artists reveals much about the state of the art world.
Theoretical framework
The theoretical framework of this thesis draws from urban theories and studies on collaborative art, while mapping and analyzing the three artist collectives in their practice, interventions, and projects. The aim is to set up an exploratory project with a possible outlook to future artistic practices, offering an analysis rather than giving an overview, and creating a dialogue between ruangrupa, Huit Facettes, and Raqs as case studies, and the theoretical framework. I will explore theories concerning art and the urban space, as proposed by Finish writer and researcher Saara Liinamaa, and researched in the book Take Place. Photography and Place from Multiple
Perspectives, edited by Dutch art historian Helen Westgeest. Furthermore, the concept of
collaborative art, developed by American professor of Art History and writer Grant Kester, will
be researched in relation to the collectives. Their ideas function as an experimentation of different readings of the artist collectives.
address the multiple intersections of contemporary art, urban studies, and social theory. In her article ‘Contemporary Art’s ‘Urban Question’ and Practices of Experimentation’ she states, “art’s urban practices can reproduce and reinvent the dominant urban order; they can realize the city as surface and depth, and they can work with and against hegemonic cultural globalization.”5 These developments can be seen as art contributing to the way we organize and live in cities, as well as showing the creative engagement of artists in what a city has to offer. The book Take
Place. Photography and Place from Multiple Perspectives reflects on the theme of place in
contemporary art. Trough several essays, it brings together various scholarly disciplines, such as art history, social geography and the history of architecture, as well as artistic disciplines, such as performance, multi media art projects and installation art. Mainly focused on photography, I used this publication as background information on the role of place in contemporary art.
In his books
Conversation Pieces: The Role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art (2005) and The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context (2011), Kester examines collaborative
and collective art practices. In his first book, he coined the term dialogic art. He states that through dialogic art and collaborative art an advancement of the agency of participants takes place. Kester sees “a shift from a concept of art as something envisioned beforehand by the artist and placed before the viewer, to the concept of art as a process of reciprocal creative labor.”6 Thus, the traditional perception of the artwork is challenged. Lastly, I draw from primary sources, such as written work by the artist collectives themselves, which is either published on their websites or in on- and offline journals. Primarily used in the exploratory phases of my research, these articles helped shaping my ideas concerning the subject of my thesis. Both ruangrupa and Raqs have interesting and extensive websites, used almost as an extension of their art, if you will.
Structure of thesis
This thesis is divided in four chapters. The first chapter ‘The Phenomenon of the Artist
Collective’ introduces the concept of the artist collective. It includes a discussion of the different aspects of collaborative and collective art practices, in order to find and form a definition of the artist collective. Furthermore, it consists of a brief historical sketch of these specific art
practices, describing preceding movements in the art historical discourse. The chapter’s main focus involves an extended meditation on the significance and meaning of collaborative and collective art practices. Concluding with an introduction of the three artist collectives,
ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs, as well as an introduction of the urban theories and studies 5 Liinamaa, Saara, ‘Contemporary Art’s ‘Urban Question’ and Practices of Experimentation’, p. 531
on collaborative art, this chapter will function as a basis for the following case studies. Building on the theoretical framework established in chapter 1, the second chapter ‘Artistic Practices in the Space Between: ruangrupa’s intervening experiments in the urban space’, provides a detailed discussion of various projects by ruangrupa. How does the artist collective intervene in the urban space of Jakarta? The chapter discusses their work in relation to artistic experimentation with urban life, creating a dialogue between ruangrupa’s art and theories coined by Liinamaa, as well as relating it to the concept of transculturality.
Whereas the urban theories provide a primary frame for the discussion of ruangrupa’s projects, collaborative art practices are a central theme in chapter 3, ‘Reconciliation Between Opposites: Huit Facettes Interaction’s interdisciplinary collaborations and social interventions’. It examines the workshop-based practices, conducted by Huit Facettes in Senegal’s rural and suburban areas. How do Huit Facettes’ social interventions empower communities and bring together opposites? Building on ideas of Grant Kester and Okwui Enwezor, the chapter aims to analyze the artist collective’s work in relation to collective and interdisciplinary practices.
In chapter 4, ‘The Convergence of Time and Space: Raqs Media Collective’s multi-media artworks and workshops’, the emphasis shifts back to urban theories. It discusses Sarai, an interdisciplinary program for research and practice on media, cityscape and urban culture in Delhi, which the artist collective cofounded. Furthermore, Raqs’ work is related to the concept of contemporaneity.
During the study that preceded this thesis, it became clear that the emergence of collaborative and collective art practices is omnipresent, in particular the rise of the artist run space and artist collective or initiative. More and more artists decide to join forces, and work together on project basis or in a permanent structure. The question as of why so many artists turn to this mode of production as well as the motivation to better understand it, has been on my mind for some time, and not being able to find an answer that easily, it formed a good starting point for my research. That being said, I want to direct my research towards the meaning and impact of collaborative and collective practices, rather than studying the reason why artists decide to join forces in their creative endeavor. Together with a profound interest in everything that is far away from my hometown Amsterdam in general, as well as the dynamics of contemporary city life in particular, this brought me to focus on ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs. The three artist collectives, that also operate beyond their cities of base as they conduct projects around the world, are very diverse in their ways of working, subjects and origin, but yet also show several similarities, as they all engage in the urban space regarding its rapid changes and see the
creative interaction involved in group work as part of their artistic practice. This is a thoroughly global phenomenon that extends from ruangrupa’s artistic urban experiments in Jakarta, Huit Facettes’ village-based collaborations in Dakar, and Raqs’ work with Delhi’s communities, and
beyond. The way they aim to create a different, more humane and creative society through their work, provides a glimpse of an exciting, and maybe even hopeful and positive, future of art. The goal of this thesis, in the end, is to draw attention to the importance of the artist’s agency, as my theoretical research is build upon the artworks, creative choices and projects made by the artist collectives, not the other way around. The art does not function as a mere illustration of the framework I have created, but forms the starting point of my explorations. Moreover, the works and projects by the artist collectives have sparked my interest and curiosity into art that reaches beyond the confined space of the exhibition and museum. In a way, this transcends the case studies, addressing the topic of the importance of art in society.
The image on the cover depicts a mural on the base of an overpass in Jakarta, a public art collaboration between ruangrupa and Indonesian artist Aprilia Apsari. It says, “kamu mau kemana? Langsung pulang ya”, translated as “do you want to go? Yes, straight home”, referring to the busy traffic above the artwork.
The title for this thesis is inspired by and borrowed from ruangrupa’s motto, as explained by director and artist Ade Darmawan, during his Freedom Lecture in De Balie,
Amsterdam on October 23, 2014. Referring to the importance of building relations for change in all parts of society, and the creation of transcultural communication, their motto is: “make friendship, not art”.
1 The phenomenon of the artist collective
The past decade has witnessed the emergence of more and more collaborative and collective approaches in contemporary art, which continues to expand in the art world today. This development is evident across a wide range of practices, ranging from biennial-based works to more activist oriented projects. Descending from socially engaged art in the 1960s, collaborative and collective art practices are exhibitions, projects or artworks, characterized by a group of people working on a concept together. The heading of collaboration covers several art forms, all defined by the relationship between participants and the method of working, such as interaction and participation. This chapter discusses several aspects of this specific kind of collaborative work in contemporary art. A primary concern here is to define the artist collective and to give a brief historical sketch. Furthermore, ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs, will be introduced, as well as the theories this thesis builds on.
Defining the artist collective
Collaborative art projects are often initiated to stimulate social change and political action in communities, or when artists work towards shared aims, creating projects and art that build on the dynamics of a group. Obviously, there are different reasons as to why artists work together. Collaborations can be initiated because the artists share basic and practical needs, such as materials or a workspace, and a common understanding of art and production, or they follow the same ways of living, ideologies, aesthetic and political views and are organized in terms of common values. These aspects are often found in artist initiatives and artist run spaces, where the focus is on forms of joint organization, aside from individual careers. Here, collaboration does not have to be at the core of the artistic practices. The concepts of the artist initiative or artist run space can be seen as an umbrella name for all activity, generated by artists, ranging from, for instance, the setting up of an art gallery, a platform or network or the creation of programs for exchange between artists. This type of collaboration emphasizes a flexible and non-permanent form of collective art practices, often on a project basis instead of a long-lasting alliance. An example of such an artist run space, that foregrounds flexible collective art practices, is the Amsterdam-based W139. This presentation and production space for contemporary art was founded in 1979, by a young group of artists aiming to create an alternative for the formal gallery spaces and museums.7 Australian artist and writer Charles Green describes collaborative practices in the form of long-lasting alliances, in his book The
Third Hand: Collaboration in Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism (2001). Exploring the
7 Information found on the website of W139 [http://w139.nl/en/about/], accessed on 15th of June, 2015
work of Marina Abramovic and Ulay, and Gilbert and George, among others, he mainly focuses on artists who work in teams of two, linked through a personal relationship as well as an artistic one. According to Green, the concept of the third artist is created at the intersection of these complex relations, leading to a new and very particular form of creative praxis.8
The artist collective can be seen as another form of permanent partnership, although different from the type of collaboration mentioned above. Whereas the concepts of an artist run space or artist platform are defined by a flexible and non-permanent form of collaborative practice, and artist teams focus on the dynamics emerging out of a personal relationship, the artist collective is all about a specific idea of authorship, and the manifestation as a brand. Moreover, and this is probably the main
characteristic, the artist run space or artist platform operates from one place, as seen in W139, as opposed the artist collective that is not inherently bound to one place. The artist collective challenges the figure of the singular, auratic artist, and can therefore be regarded as a negation of the Romantic concept of the artist as an individual genius. This might be a rather simplistic 19th-Century idea of art, but remains an often-used template for much contemporary criticism and curatorial practice.9 Nevertheless, an artist collective is neither simply the sum of different
artists. Exploring the dynamics generated by creative
group work, in his article ‘ruangrupa, What Could Be ‘Art to Come’?’, at that time curator of Chinese art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York Thomas Berghuis (The Netherlands), writes that artist collectives “expand the pivotal role of the individual artist and his or her capacity as the presumed sole creator of an artwork, by instead directing attention towards the significance of collaboration.” The artist collective counterbalances the idea of the sole creator of an artwork. Elaborating on the specific practice that takes place within the artist collective, he states “here, collaboration refers not only to that occurring between artists, or based on exchanges between artists, curators and their audiences, but also to the production of actual joint artistic processes based on the artistic identity of the artist collective.”10 To work together enables the process of making the collective enterprise visible, turning the artist into a
collaborator or mediator. As opposed to flexible and non-permanent collaborative and collective art practices, the authorship of artist collectives is represented in the profiling as a group.
Various perspectives, backgrounds and characters define the collective, and lead towards a specific practice. These interactions and the resulting synergies initiate new creative possibilities, as well as a thorough questioning of
8 Green referred to by Kester 2011, p. 3 9 Ibid
traditional ideas about authorship, also mentioned above.11 The artist collective presupposes a particular kind of artistry and art practice, different from those based on the autonomous individual, questioning notions of authenticity. In general, art is defined on a basis of originality and authenticity, and the artist on his authority as an individual talent and genius. An enduring legacy of Modernism, this vision is still very much dominates the art-historical discourse of today. Attempting to deconstruct the individuality in artistry, the collective practice enables a more interdisciplinary dimension in contemporary art. Furthermore, collaborative creativity can be seen as a form of resisting the dominant art system, art market and call for specialization. Artist collectives often working together with environmental activists, trade unions and anti-globalization protestors, reflect this interdisciplinary approach to art. Through the
collaborations, art becomes “a mode of self-reflexive analysis and critique that can be applied to virtually any system of signification, such as individual or collective identity, institutional discourse and visual representation”, as Kester argues.12 This vision foregrounds art’s ability to destabilize and critique conventions, and emphasizes the value of creative collaboration for the aforementioned different influential systems within society.
Therefore, it could be argued that the aim of the artist collective is not to create an object-based artwork that exists in, for instance, the context of an exhibition, but to create collaboration- and project-based artworks that go beyond the unity of action, time and place. Kester explains “the collaborative and collective projects differ considerably from
conventional, object-based art practice. The participant’s engagement is actualized by
immersion and participation in a process, rather than through visual contemplation (reading or decoding an image or object).”13 This immersion (being almost submerged and blended in an artwork, through involvement and contribution to a project or work) and participation of both the artists and the viewer is emphasized in the process and experience of collaborative
interaction itself. Consequently, this type of art practice does not specifically focus on the creation of a work, which is destined to be received in silence and solitude, although that is still possible. It is through active involvement and contribution of both the artist and participants or public that these practices seem to initiate and facilitate new networks and new modalities of social interaction, as a well-known social aspect comes to the fore, namely, the concept of joint forces. Despite the vast emergence of collaborative and collective art practices around the world, there are also critical aspects that need to be taken into account, regarding the structures, motivations and aims of these practices. The disappearance of a sole creator in favor of the collective can be seen as negative, when it comes to conformist demands caused by
11 Introduction to the exhibition Kollektive Kreativitat, Fridericianium, Kassel (2005) 12 Kester, Grant. ‘Collaboration Art and Subcultures’, p. 16
collaboration. Individual participants become more or less invisible, while the author remains predominately unclear. Nevertheless, this fact can be used as an artistic statement, making the importance of a visible author insignificant. On the other hand, through collaboration, various groups or specific social problems are appropriated for artistic ends, while they may not benefit directly from participation in certain artistic practices. Notwithstanding this fact, the democratic methods promoted in the name of collaboration could lead to the actual advancement of the agency of participants, as will be discussed further on in this thesis, in chapter 3 on Huit Facettes’ art practices.
Historical sketch
The phenomenon of the artist collective has occurred throughout history, ranging from groups of artists working together as a ‘commune’ in Paris during the 1860s, the socialist collectives of the Russian Revolution in 1917, to the proletarian theater projects in Moscow and Berlin in the 1920s. Furthermore, the subversive developments of avant-garde movements such as Dada in the wake of World War I, the radical interventions of Situationist International, and CoBrA’s international creative collaborations after World War II are part of the historical genealogy of collectivity in art as well.14 Other examples of artists collaborating include the Surrealists, the members of Bauhaus, and the international network of artists, composers and designers Fluxus. The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of movements of alternative spaces (a prefiguration of today’s artist run spaces) around the world, as well as activist-based practices in relation to issues of
class, gender, and race. In
the introduction of Artistic Bedfellows, Histories, Theories, and Conversations in Collaborative Art
Practices (2008), American artist, art-historian and editor Holly Crawford writes “collaboration
may be a case either of many hands working to make one object, or of many artists working as part of a collaborative effort, whether working together at one place and one time, or working together entirely separate in space and time.”15 She points out, and which is underlined by the aforementioned examples, that “what begins as a collaborative effort and vision of many, may later become an historical –ism”.16 Thus, Dada, Situationist International and the Surrealists, to name a few, initially consisted of artists working as part of a collaborative effort, evolving into an art historical movement over time. What starts small might become core to the art historical
discourse later. Although collaborative art
practices and the artist collective are phenomena of all times, these precursors do not entirely explain the artist collectives of nowadays. Going back to the socially engaged collaborative art practices that emerged out of the political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, when artists started 14 Enwezor, p. 224
15 Crawford, Holly. Artistic Bedfellows, p. 13 16 Ibid
questioning the essence of artistic production more and more, one can see similarities with the current situation. The collective as a social unit became an important counter movement, a model for change, responding to imperialism, moralism, the indifferent mass culture, hostile art establishment and other hot topics of the 1960s. Kester claims that the emerging artistic formations served as a ‘protective enclave’, performing a defensive function against these hot topics.17 To me, the description of the artist collective as a protective enclave represents precisely the strength of collaboration, and its resulting in new possibilities.
The 1980s and 1990s are the decades of a new rise of socially engaged art. Artist collectives started to experiment with reconfigurations of the artist’s relationship to the audience. At the core of these new practices was a focus on public space and activist intervention.18 One of the protagonists of socially engaged art is French theorist, art historian and curator Nicolas Bourriaud, who coined the term
relational aesthetics. Bourriaud defined it as “a set of practices which take as the theoretical and
practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space.”19 An important element in the work of Bourriaud is politics and the role of the aesthetic. He conceives the aesthetic as a place with a certain freedom, where imagination rules over political and social constructs, enabling the creation of a moment in which a different structure and interrelationship between people is possible, defined by him as a
microtopia. He claims that artists are facilitators rather than creators, and regards art as an
exchange of information between the artist and the public, producing a specific kind of
sociability. Following Bourriaud’s definition of relational aesthetics, art is more than a reflection on society and the state of the world, as art is also an active participant in the (re) production of it. 20 Claire Bishop, British art historian and writer, criticized Bourriaud’s definition of the term relational aesthetics and introduced participation art. By questioning the types of relations that are produced in art, she addresses the conditions in which the work is experienced: “if relational art produces human relations, then the next logical question to ask is what types of relations are being produced, for whom, and why?”21 Focusing on a specific audience causes the exclusion of another. She argues, “the relations set up by relational aesthetics are not intrinsically democratic, as Bourriaud suggests, since they rest too comfortably within an ideal of subjectivity as whole and of community as immanent 17 Kester 2011, p. 4
18 Ibid
19 Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics, p. 113 20 Bourriaud, p. 115
togetherness.”22 Furthermore, Bishop challenges the political and aesthetic ambitions of
relational aesthetics and participation art, calling for new, more compelling and bolder forms of engaged and participatory art and criticism, by focusing on a less prescriptive approach to both. Relational aesthetics as well as participation art foreground art as an experience, as both are defined as a set of participatory encounters rather than gallery-ready objects that are presented to the viewer. Contemporary artist collectives, also the ones researched in this thesis, can be seen as a contemporary version of socially engaged art of the 1980s and 1990s. Although very specifically rooted in their own times, there are certain similarities between the historical events and developments in the art world and the present. Argentinean philosopher Reinaldo Laddaga argues “artist collectives that we now see emerging are a response to the very specific configuration of the art scene at the beginning of this millennium, when governments are selectively abandoning the funding of art, or attempting to tie this funding to criteria of economic or social efficiency.” Besides governments cutting back on art funding, it is also the galleries and museums that are increasingly refusing to fund or exhibit projects and artworks that don’t necessarily culminate in a grand spectacle.23 Furthermore, he elaborates that contemporary projects of collectivity actively engage in today’s anti-globalization movements. Looking back at these historical developments, it could be argued that artist collectives and other collaborative artistic practices tend to emerge during periods of crisis, in times of social discontent and political uncertainty within society.
Nevertheless, we have to look further than developments in the art world, as the
emergence of the artist collective is not solely initiated by the cutting back of funding, or the lack of, willing exhibition spaces. According to Laddaga, it is “necessary to situate these initiatives in the context of processes that take place in other areas of social existence: in the field of politics, for instance.”24 Through the organization in groups, artists are able to publicly manifest a discontent, as is seen before in the artist collectives of the 1960s and 1970s, when they often served as protective enclaves. Laddaga also points out the omnipresent technology of nowadays. The digitization “enables faster and more constant long distance communication, but also favors the emergence of new modes of collaborative production.”25 This technological aspect allows for a transcultural communication between artist collectives, leading to new ways of collaboration across the world.
22 Ibid, p. 67
23 Laddaga, Reinaldo. ‘Art and Organization’. In: Shifting Map, p. 17 24 Ibid, p. 18
The case studies
The official contemporary art institutions are scarcely scattered around the cities of Jakarta as well as Dakar and Delhi. Moreover, the established institutions often dysfunction as part of the public domain and are, to a large extend, seen as inaccessible for young artists. However, as Nina Möntmann argues, in her article ‘Globalisering van Onderaf’, whereas in these situations, there typically is no easy access to public or private funds either, they nonetheless often lead to the development of projects characterized by collaboration and exchange.26 With a focus on collective and interdisciplinary activities, ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs produce works ranging from the organization of festivals, holding workshops and the creation of multimedia projects, in collaboration with curators, researchers, activists, NGO’s, urban planners and social workers, but also collaborations between artists and members of a community, creating and participating in a project. These collective and interdisciplinary activities have led to ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs becoming well known beyond their own cities, and has caused them to evolve from local artist collectives to an international establishment within the contemporary art world. All three collectives characteristically go beyond object-based artworks, focusing on social influences on society, and aiming for an educational dimension in their work. Their artistic interventions in the urban spaces initiate change and research. Working in different parts of the world, engaging in the contemporary urban space of their specific locations, I have chosen them as case studies because of both the similarities and dissimilarities they convey in their work, projects and practice.
Founded in 2000, by six Jakarta-based artists, who met as students in different cities across Indonesia’s archipelago – Ade Darmawan, Hafiz, Oky Arfie, Ronny Agustinus, Lilia Nursita and Rithmi - ruangrupa (in lower case letters) operates on the intersection of an artist
collective and an artist initiative or artist run space. The word ‘ruang’ means space, ‘rupa’ means visual. They are also known by the name Ruru. According to Ade Darmawan, who is now the artistic director of ruangrupa, the “main purpose is to reclaim the public space that has been controlled by bureaucracy, authority and anarchical urban infrastructure.”27 In a political climate where there is little government support for the arts, this main purpose culminates in their initiation of art projects that emphasize a relation with the community as well as the aim to build a critical view and awareness towards social, urban and political issues. Closely connected to the urban space of Jakarta, their projects support the idea of art within an urban and cultural context by involving artists and other disciplines such as social sciences, politics, technology and media. On the one hand, as a collective, ruangrupa produces collaborative works in the form of 26 Möntmann, Nina. ‘Globalisering van Onderaf,’ Metropolis M
[http://metropolism.com/magazine/2007-no3/globalisering-van-onderaf/]
27 Darmawan, Ade quoted by Kurniawan, Agung. ‘The Rebels from the Living Room’. In: Shifting
art projects such as exhibitions, festivals, workshops, as well as books, a magazine and an online-journal publication. On the other hand, as an artist run space or alternative art space, they provide residencies. Here, the focus lies on collaboration between the visiting artists and ruangrupa, as well as on the exploration and experimentation with the artists’ interaction in contemporary Jakartan urban life. Their motto, ‘make friendship, not art’ refers to the importance of building relations for change and the creation of transnational networks and communication.28 Common to ruangrupa’s different projects and collaborations is the analysis of the autonomous artistic work against the background of identity, as ruangrupa continuously aims to create platforms for exchange between people with different backgrounds.
Huit Facettes Interaction is a collective of contemporary visual artists, living in Senegal.
Eight individual artists started the collective, hence the name, but it currently has seven
members, including Abdoulaye N’doye, El Hadji Sy, Fodé Camara, Cheikh Niass, Jean Marie Bruce, Muhsana Ali and Kan-si. The collective was founded in 1995, when the artists traveled to
Belgium at the invitation of a Flemish art center in Turnhout. Their aim is “to free themselves of the more haphazard and vulgar aspects of artistic means of expression as they are defined from the traditional western perspective”29, by initiating collaborations between different artists and organizations from around the world, that take place in Senegal rather than in Europe or North America. Moreover, Huit Facettes attempts to decentralize culture by setting up cultural,
economic and social development projects in areas with a socially weak position. They focus on social interventions in the form of workshops, aiming to create a culture for the largely rural and suburban areas of Senegal. The workshop is regarded as a social form of creative production and art practice, leading to interaction, which is equally important as the resulting artworks. In their workshops, participants rediscover their creative abilities and cultural identities, and become anchored in their own traditions.30 Additionally, Huit Facette challenges urban-rural binaries, targeting small-scale solutions to urban socio-economic problems. They first and foremost aim to create centers for cultural, social, and artistic exchanges. Media practitioners Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi and Shuddhabrata Sengupta began working as a collective in 1991. As Raqs Media Collective, one of their focuses is on the theme of the urban space, with the city of Delhi often, but not only, as a subject of their work. The word ‘raqs’ comes form the Urdu, Persian and Arabic word for traditional dance, as performed by whirling dervishes. Their practice includes new media and digital art practice, curating of art exhibitions and staging of art interventions in public spaces, documentary filmmaking, photography, creating installations, 28 Darmawan, Ade. Freedom Lecture at De Balie, October 23, 2014
29 Kane-Sy, Amadou. ‘Beyond Postism’. Springerin.
[http://www.springerin.at/dyn/heft_text.php?textid=1277&lang=en]
30 Rietzek, Gerti. Rattemeyer, Christian (red.). Documenta11. Ausstellung Kurzführer/Exhibition
media theory and research, writing essays and editing books, criticism, playing with archival traces, and the enactment of lecture-performances, to name a few among the many aspects.31 By creating multimedia activities, they explore forms of inhabiting urban spaces and the making and unmaking of new and old territories. Another important aspect of their artistic practice, featured in the multimedia activities, is the implementation of alternative strategies for the production and distribution of information, making it widely available through free software and across the Internet.32 Raqs (pronounced as ‘rux’) is one of the initiators of Sarai: The New
Media Initiative, a program of interdisciplinary research and practice on media, cityscape and
urban culture at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, in Delhi.33 Ever since their foundation, the collective has played a plurality of roles, ranging from the frequent appearance as artists, to working occasionally as curators, and sometimes as ‘philosophical agent
provocateurs’. With interdisciplinary collaboration at the core of their practice, the collective has often worked together with architects, computer programmers, writers and theater directors.34
Theoretical frame of reference
In this final section of chapter 1, I will discuss and explain the urban theories and studies on collaborative art this thesis draws from. Creating a theoretical framework and a reflection of the discourse, this forms a base for the dialogue between the artistic practices of ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs discussed in the following three chapters, and said theories. In the case of the urban theories, using a study that specifically deals with the experience of the urban culture and space, the focus will be on art’s effectiveness as a medium for social transformation, in regard to rapid changes in social, cultural and political fields. When it comes to the studies on
collaborative art, the advancement of the agency of participants through these practices will be researched, as well as the process of collective production.
Proliferating around the world today are numerous art practices undertaken in the name of the city. These range from street art, such as traditional graffiti art work, stencils, posters and other artistic interventions that literally turn the urban realm into a large canvas, to the
inclusion of artists in teams of urban problem solvers. According to Saara Liinamaa, in her article ‘Contemporary Art’s ‘Urban Question’ and Practices of Experimentation’, these
interdisciplinary partnerships lead to the ability of art contributing to, for instance, economic 31 Information taken from website Raqs Media Collective
[http://www.raqsmediacollective.net/default.aspx], accessed on 17th of May, 2015 32Rietzek, Gerti. Rattemeyer, Christian (red.), p. 192
33 Author unknown.
[http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/documenta/11/halle/e-raqs-2.htm] 34 Information taken from website Raqs Media Collective
health and social cohesion or small scale appeals for a creativity based participatory democracy.35 Urban practices are by no means a new phenomenon in art, as there are
innumerable precedents throughout the twentieth century. Mentioned before, in the historical sketch of the developments of the artist collective, movements and artist networks like Dada and Fluxus focused on the experience of the city, as did the Surrealists and Situationist International. Art forms such as site specifity, community art and public art are closely linked to urban
practices as well. Liinamaa proposes a set of shared characteristics that represent urban practices, in order to clarify what these actually are. Her definition aids in the understanding of the work of ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs, as well as underlining the aforementioned methods of collaborative and collective art practices, conducted by the collectives in question. Therefore it will be quoted here at length:
Firstly, ‘a portion, if not all, of the work is conducted, performed, or exists outside formal gallery spaces – usually in everyday urban spaces and common/public spaces; often, a particular city or neighborhood is central to the project.’ Second, ‘the project solicits collaboration, participation, or at the very least a reaction, from a wider public, be it a specific group or anonymous passers-by.’ Her third proposed characteristic of artistic urban practices is, ‘the project is process- rather than product-oriented; it has an ephemeral or situational component. That said, the process may result in a tangible contribution or object of urban problem-solving.’ Lastly, ‘the project addresses a central, often marginalized, urban theme or issue. This, of course, relies on an amount of
interpretation and emphasis, but includes a range of possible topics within general categories such as: everyday life, space and place, community, circulation, migration, consumption, identity and belonging, memory and history.’36
I regard this proposed set of characteristics as at the core of the practices of the artist collectives. Furthermore, it characterizes the mixed traditions of artistic urban practices. However, it should be taken into account that these practices go beyond a mere representation of the city, where it is treated as an object or site, shifting to the city being treated as a
protagonist. Liinamaa argues “the city as a protagonist stresses that it is a multidimensional and active agent within its representation.”37 Precisely this treatment of the city as an active agent constitutes the shift away from artistic representation of urban life to artistic experimentation with urban life. The city is featured as a relational structure that actively shapes the spaces,
35 Liinamaa, p. 529 36 Liinamaa, p. 534 37 Ibid
patterns and processes of the artistic practices.38 An approach of the city as a relational structure is also reflected in the essay ‘Matter Acts. De-forming Space’ by social geographer Barbara Hooper, part of the book Take Place. She sees place as matter, rather than solely space or time. According to Hooper it is formed matter (a relational structure) as space and time “have been spaced/timed into being.”39 This approach is reflected in the work of ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs, as they initiate interventions, experiments and a critical interpretation of the city and urban experience, while blurring the boundaries between art and non-art. The city intervenes in their work, as they intervene in the city. They aim to evoke and articulate the imagination of the ungraspable multiplicity of the metropolis, by developing an urban culture, as ruangrupa does, through the organization of cultural centers for exchange in rural and suburban area’s of Senegal, as seen in the work of Huit Facettes, or by creating multimedia artworks in which Raqs takes their city as the subject. They are engaged in city life, space, places and
experiences. Notwithstan
ding the fact that collaboration in art is by no means new, as suggested earlier in chapter 1 and also mentioned in relation to urban practices in art, more and more artists have been drawn to this specific mode of production over the past two decades. The various sorts of collaborations Kester discusses in his book The One and the Many occur between artists and artists, artists and curators, and artists and others. He focuses on methods of artistic collaboration as well as analyzing the resulting artworks. According to Kester, there are currently two significant shifts at work in contemporary art. He explains, as also stated before in this chapter, that the interest in collective approaches in art is gaining ground. The second shift Kester sees is a movement away from a textual mode of production toward a more process-based and participatory experience.40 These shifts symbolize the blurring of boundaries between socially engaged artistic practices and the avant-garde, as interaction and participation are more and more emphasized, gradually becoming part of the avant-garde. In his previous book
Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication (2004), Kester coined the term ‘dialogic art’,
which refers to art as an open-ended form of exchange, unfolding in a process of performative interaction.41 His most recent book expands upon this aspect in art production, as he focuses on collaborative projects and works that merge community activism and artistic production. Kester argues “one of the most decisive features of recent collaborative art practice is a rearticulation of aesthetic autonomy as art practices parallel, overlap with, and challenge the organizational and 38 Ibid, p 535
39 Hooper, Barbara. ‘Matter Acts. De-forming Space’. In: Take Place. Photography and Place from
Multiple Perspectives, p. 192
40 Kester 2011, p. 8
ideological protocols of urban planning, political activism, and other fields of cultural production.”42 This certain fostering of interdisciplinarity could lead to implications for the autonomy of the work of art and the sovereignty of the artistic personality, as it influences art production. However, these collaborative and collective art practices are not a mere illustration of the above-mentioned power structures, as they center on the artist’s agency, leading to a creation of autonomous works of art, that are just as well rooted in today’s societies. Hence, one could say that power has reconfigured itself to be decentralized. Furthermore, Kester explains that collaborative projects and collective systems of art production are able to “intersect with the demands of activist work, producing symptomatic interference patterns in the protocols and orientation of each.”43 These projects mobilize creative agency, as they
advocate social justice for their participants. In this respect, one could think of the workshop as a method of production, emphasizing the agency of its participants. According to Kester, the workshop is grounded in direct action, responding to the specific needs of certain areas or communities. It engages in a range of practices, extending from media training to city planning and environmental workshops, and the recovering and production of traditional arts and
crafts.44 Using the
aforementioned theories as a framework, the following chapters aim to explore notions of artistic experimentation within the urban space, collaborative art, transculturality, multimedia art, contemporaneity and interdisciplinarity, as I will discuss the research based art practices and various projects and works by ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs. In this respect, the concepts developed by Liinamaa and Kester will function as different readings of the practices of the artist collectives, in further research of their engaging and intervening in urban, suburban and rural spaces, regarding the rapid changes in social, cultural and political fields. Some readings will be more productive than others, relating to the artist collectives and their practices, as will become clear. Ruangrupa’s projects predominantly appeal to urban theories and transculturality, whereas Huit Facettes foregrounds collaboration, evoking a concept of interdisciplinarity, while emphasizing collective practices. Raqs’ work as an artist collective relates to a concept of interdisciplinarity as well, with their conducting of urban research in particular. Moreover, their works can be regarded as an expression of the concept of
contemporaneity. After studying the work of ruangrupa, Huit Facettes and Raqs, the
above-mentioned different concepts clearly stood out. As these concepts emerged from their work, I took them as my starting point and framed them in the following case studies.
42 Kester, p. 14 43 Ibid, p. 199 44 Kester, p. 96
2 Artistic Practices in the Space Between: ruangrupa’s intervening
experiments in the city
Jakarta, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world, with an estimated population of over 9.5 million people, is at the core of many of the works and projects by ruangrupa. A city in which extremes coincide, Jakarta unites ambition and degradation, as seen in the numerous skyscrapers and high tech shopping malls on the one hand, and poor slums and almost no public space whatsoever on the other. The oppositions and contrasts are omnipresent. Operating on the intersection of an artist collective and an artist run space, ruangrupa’s initial purpose was to create a network of activities centered on social engagement within the urban
context of Jakarta. To better
understand Indonesia’s current situation, I will briefly explain the political developments preceding ruangrupa’s establishment. The period from 1965 to 1998 is marked as president Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998. After the fall of Suharto’s New Order, a wave of change and transition was initiated. During his regime, governmental institutions dominated social, cultural and political organizations, being particularly powerful through a strict censorship and
bureaucratization of these organizations. A period of reform followed, called reformasi, in which students played an important role. During the reformasi youth culture was given previously denied freedoms, leading to the development of local civil initiatives and alternative media.45 45 Juliastuti, Nuraini. ‘A Conversation on Horizontal Organisation.’ Afterall
[http://www.afterall.org/journal/issue.30/ruangrupa-a-conversation-on-horizontal-organisati on]
Even though the reformasi gave space to the development of a counterculture, nowadays Indonesia is still challenged by a hierarchy of state above society. Artist and board member of Yogyakarta-based Cemeti Art House Agung Kurniawan clearly illustrates the conditions artists in Indonesia have to deal with:
“…bankrupt economy, intensified crime, racial riots and ethnic cleansing, which are caused by economical reasons but wrapped up in the guise of religious conflicts, and also massive corruption, untouched by law. Yet, what seems quite paradoxical is that there is also an emergence of freedom in many aspects: thought, speech, press, political practice and many others.”46
The paradoxical development creates a particular situation for the arts, as there is a certain freedom to critically respond to the negative developments mentioned by Kurniawan. Moreover, the city has lost many of its social functions in the public space, due to the development of the economical and commercial activities. However, according to Darmawan the paradoxical
development and the certain loss of social functions in the public space is not solely negative, as it creates the potential to develop creative capacities, making the relation between visual art systems and Jakarta’s infrastructure an important context of their work.47 The following discussion of ruangrupa’s projects often follows Darmawan’s explanations or builds upon his quotes. The reason for this is that, as ruangrupa’s artistic director, he is considered the main
protagonist, being the contact for the media. Playful
urban experiments have the ability to challenge traditional hierarchical (infra) structures within the city. Liinamaa explains that activism is not equal to artistic interventions in the urban space, but that they do coincide from time to time. Art’s urban techniques can provide for critical elaborations and recognition and exposition of problems and needs.48 Notwithstanding the fact that an activist approach of artistic interventions in the urban space is not always suitable, this approach can be of importance in the understanding of art’s contribution to everyday city life. Certain projects by ruangrupa convey this ability of challenging traditional structures in the urban space, in particular the biennial Jakarta 32°C and the participation artwork Jakarta
Habitus Publik.
Urban interventions and experiments
Initiated in 2004, Jakarta 32°C aims to create a critical dialogue between art students, while introducing their work to the city’s inhabitants. Inviting students from different universities across Jakarta, the biennial is an attempt to develop an alternative method for the local 46 Kurniawan, Agung. ‘The Rebels from the Living Room.’ In: Shifting Map, p. 151 47 Darmawan in conversation with Juliastuti.
infrastructure of art education, offering workshops, presentations, discussions, film screenings and art exhibitions. Together with these young artists, ruangrupa collaborates in a two-week event, exploring what forms of creative and critical spaces are needed, with room for public discussion and the creation of a network across the city. The focus of these collaborations and explorations is how they view the city space. Darmawan: “We hold public workshops to invite students to examine the details of city spaces, aspects of visual culture, city designs, local city regulations, local practices and local economic infrastructure. Students are challenged to offer their statements, interact with a wider public and speculate on alternative visions.”49 The traditional hierarchy of state above society is challenged through a project like Jakarta 32°C, as the students’ practices leads to interaction and exchange between them, the locals and the official representatives of the city. The artistic interventions, conducted by the art students, and the resulting interaction and exchange between Jakarta’s inhabitants aim to contribute
positively to everyday city life. In the case of Jakarta 32°C, the focus is on improving art education, as well as on reshaping ideas of art in the public space.
As public art and its role within the urban space is an important and recurrent subject in the work of ruangrupa, I would like to discuss the project Jakarta Habitus Publik. Being part of the first Jakarta Art Festival in June 2001, this project aimed to raise the issue of the artist’s position in society and research the loss of public space in the urban environment of Jakarta, through a process-oriented project. Preceded by two months of research, documentation and preparation, ruangrupa invited 50 artists from Jakarta, Bandung, and Yogyakarta, to participate in activities based on the act of exchange, intervention, negotiation, and negation in the public space. The participating artists created works centered around four different sections, namely, site specific, video art, mural, and poster (image 1 and 2). During the project, several problems with the city government arose, as they didn’t permit the art activities in the public space. The issue underlined the importance of this project, as it raised questions such as how art and artists should negotiate within Jakarta’s public space, if this space is still owned by the authorities and how these matters reflect the inner dynamics of the society.50 Jakarta Habitus Publik generated collaboration and participation, as well as providing recognition and exposition of imbalanced power structures, while the authorities were challenged and the loss of open places within the urban space of Jakarta was emphasized. As Jakarta 32°C and
Jakarta Habitus Publik convey, ruangrupa’s artistic practices are thoroughly research based. At
the core of both projects are several studies, explorations and inquiries, into the needs of art students, artists and other inhabitants of Jakarta, within the wider context of the city. Mentioned in the set of characteristics that represent urban artistic practices (see chapter 1), Liinamaa 49 Darmawan in conversation with Juliastuti.
argues that the artistic work is often conducted, performed, or exists outside formal gallery spaces. Furthermore, it usually takes place or is presented in everyday urban and public spaces or focuses on a specific neighborhood. The urban space is taken as a starting point for the practices, treating the city as an active agent in an artistic experimentation with urban life. The festival and public art project can be seen as playful urban experiments that challenge the hierarchical infrastructure in the urban space, as they lead to the creation of new collaborations, interaction and exchange between different groups and communities in the city. These art projects aim to contribute to everyday city life, as they go beyond the traditional and confined exhibition space of, for instance, a museum or gallery while providing critical elaborations and a recognition of urban problems. Moreover, Jakarta 32°C and Jakarta Habitus Publik offer the public, the citizens of Jakarta, a new connection with their own environment.
The concept of conceiving the city as a protagonist, an active agent in experiments with urban life, offers an interesting theoretical background for many of ruangrupa’s small-scale artistic practices, as they take place in rented houses, within the dense populated neighborhoods of Jakarta. Elaborated on by Darmawan during his Freedom Lecture at De Balie, on October 23, 2014, he explained that these houses are turned into art spaces, offering an alternative for the city’s museums and galleries. In this case, Jakarta’s dense populated neighborhoods can be regarded as the main subject of ruangrupa’s small-scale artistic practices. Therefore, the rented houses function as ruangrupa’s headquarters. The different rooms of these houses serve as studios, a library, meeting and exhibition spaces, and a music venue (image 3). Darmawan says “it is a situation where the artists-cum-activists of an alternative space – the valid representation of the people – envisage their positions among the people.”51 Quite literally placed in the center of society, the space is imbued with local values, where the artists directly interact with the local community, and the local community is able to directly participate in ruangrupa’s activities, such as festivals, workshops, specific national celebrations and a public cinema.
Inspired by Cemeti Art House, that conducted its activities in a rented house during the 1980s, Darmawan explains that he “began to see these alternative initiatives as medium-scale public institutions.”52 The direct interaction and
participation between the artists and locals, taking place in ruangrupa’s alternative art spaces in Jakarta’s neighborhood explore the concept of art as a process of reciprocal creative labor, as they reach the very core of collaborative art. An aspect of collaborative and collective art practices, this process of reciprocal creative labor is generated through the reinstallation of social functions in the public space, as seen in the organization of festivals and workshops, the 51 Darmawan in conversation with Juliastuti.
celebration of national holidays and the creation of a public cinema. Kester suggests that collaborative and collective art projects differ considerably from object-based artistic practices. They exist and are maintained through immersion and participation of the artists as well as the viewers, in this case the local communities. According to Kester, this constitutes a shift away from the concept of art envisioned beforehand by the artist and subsequently presented to the viewer. These alternative spaces, created by ruangrupa, function as a generator of ideas, and not only to present art. Moreover, they are used in an exploration of social structures in a wider context, namely, that of the city.
Transcultural interaction
Even though a great part of ruangrupa’s interactive work within the public space takes place within their city of base, many of their projects emphasize a transcultural communication and exchange, while reaching beyond Jakarta. These projects can be approached as an expression of the concept of transculturality, a concept originally coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortíz in 1940. It describes a potentially two way process of exchange between and across socio-cultural settings.53 Transculturality defines phenomena involved with mobility, migration, circulation and spatial interconnectedness. Transculturation opens up the process of cultural exchange, as the focus shifts from the end product to this very process. Ruangrupa’s
participation in RAIN, the Rijksakademie Artist Initiative Network, enables such a transcultural communication. RAIN is a collaborative experiment, founded by seven different artist collectives and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, during the late 1990s. Darmawan has been a resident at the Rijksakademie, from 1998 until 2000. The network consists of Pulse (Durban, South Africa), Centre Soleil d’Afrique (Bamako, Mali), Trama (Buenos Aires, Argentina), CEIA (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), el despacho (Mexico City, Mexico), Open Circle (Mumbai, India), and ruangrupa.
According to Gertrude Flentge, coordinator of RAIN, the participating groups see the network as “an opportunity to bring movement and energy into the individual, relatively isolated context and to unleash counter-forces within the global art domain – counter movements of artists from non-Western contexts who get a voice and build new ways of working and new strategies.”54 Thus, the network generates a two way process of exchange between and across different continents, as the artist collectives are based around the world. Moreover, RAIN causes the relatively isolated artist collectives to be more involved in the global art domain. For ruangrupa, RAIN created new ideas on social engagement and cultural diversity in the arts, as well as becoming an important support structure and a network for interaction and exchange, apart 53 Van Damme, Wilfried. ‘Interculturalization in Art: Conceptualizing Processes and Products’, in: World Art Studies. p. 381. I have chosen to use transculturality rather than interculturality, because to me it describes an exchange both between cultures and across cultures.
from their local and Southeast Asian network.
Building upon RAIN’s concepts and aiming to initiate transcultural communication by creating a network of video artists around the world, the biennial OK Video – Jakarta
International Video Art Festival brings together local and international video art in a thematic
event. The festival features very diverse themes, such as Militia in 2007 and Comedy in 2009. OK
Video in 2015 centers around Orde Baru, Indonesian for New Order and referring to Suharto’s
regime. It is conceived as giving room for meetings and exchange of ideas between artists, curators and institutions, creating an interdisciplinary network from around the world. The presence and usage of media technology in today’s society is researched, as well as the social practices that come along with it.55 Through the festival, ruangrupa aims to raise attention to the technological power of video, and, arising from this, to trigger critical apprehension of the moving image. All the events, mainly consisting of video screenings, public discussions and interactions with video art, take place at various public locations across the city. OK Video favors the everyday public spaces of Jakarta over the formal gallery space. Furthermore, the festival aims for collaboration and participation of a wide public, as both local and international artists, curators and institutions are invited to interact within the urban space of Indonesia’s capital. As ruangrupa provides alternative autonomous art and workspaces as well as creating art projects that mainly take place in Jakarta’s public areas, fostering collaboration, interaction and exchange between different groups of people, it could be argued that their artistic practices are situated in the space between: between formal galleries and street art, between artists and curators, between artists and the public, and between all of the aforementioned beings and the authorities. To illustrate ruangrupa’s role in the hustle and bustle that Jakarta is, I would like to make a reference to Michel Certeau’s ‘Walking in the City’. In this chapter of the book The
Practice of Everyday Life (1980), the French Jesuit and scholar analyses the everyday life in the
city. He compares a view on the city from above to a view from below, which respectively refers to the strategies of governments, institutions and corporations contrasted by visions and observations of the public walking the streets. Certeau does this through a description of himself, standing on the 110th floor of the World Trade Center, looking at Manhattan beneath him.56 The opposition of above and below evokes the traditional power relations ruangrupa aims to challenge and deconstruct in their projects. Taking on the role of the public walking the streets, they foreground social engagement within the urban space, creating a network that builds upon collaboration between different groups in society. The role ruangrupa plays, situated alongside Jakarta’s inhabitants, proves to be very difficult as their endeavors of 55 Information found on website OK Video
[http://okvideofestival.org/2013/festival/ok-video-muslihat/], accessed on 15th of June, 2015 56 Certeau, Michel. ‘Walking in the City’. In: The Practice of Everyday Life, p. 91
contributing to the everyday life within the urban space of this colossal city are not always successful. With the city’s authorities often standing in the way of the realization of art projects, as seen in Jakarta Habitus Publik, or the lack of public space and a specific urban culture, an image of David fighting Goliath springs to mind. The small and weaker opponent, in this case ruangrupa, battles the big adversary, Jakarta’s authorities. As this is not a fight in the sense of the story of the boy and the giant, there will not be any winners or losers, however it does illustrate ruangrupa’s various creative actions to change the city. By framing their artistic interventions in urban theories, as proposed by Liinamaa, they can be read as coinciding with activism, while providing recognition and exposition of Jakarta’s problems and needs. In doing so, the playful urban experiments become ruangrupa’s contribution to everyday city life.
Img. 1 ruangrupa, Jakarta Habitus Publik, 2001
Img. 2 ruangrupa, Jakarta Habitus Publik, 2001
