Simposium Khatulistiwa (2010-2018)

About Simposium Khatulistiwa (2010-2018)

In 2010, the Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation (YBY) designed and launched the BJ project as a series of exhibitions with a long-term agenda that will run until 2022. YBY is determined to make Yogyakarta and Indonesia more broadly a location that must be taken into account in the international art constellation. Amidst the highly dynamic global art scene—which appears to be inclusive and egalitarian—the hierarchy between the center and the periphery is still very real. Therefore, the need for intervention has become urgent.

YBY envisions a shared platform capable of countering, interrupting, or at least provoking the dominance of the center, and presenting alternatives through the diversity of contemporary art practices from an Indonesian perspective.

Over the next 10 years, starting in 2011, YBY will organize BJ as a series of exhibitions based on one major theme, namely Khatulistiwa (Equator). This biennale series will set specific geographical boundaries on the planet Earth as its working area, namely the region stretching between 23.27 N and 23.27 S. In each of its events, BJ will work with one or more countries or regions as ‘partners’, inviting artists from countries within this region to collaborate, create, exhibit, meet, and engage in dialogue with Indonesian artists, groups, and arts and cultural organizations in Yogyakarta.

This journey around the planet near the equator begins by traveling westward. The Jogja Biennale does not begin this journey eastward because it recognizes the limitations of knowledge about the Pacific and even the archipelago itself.

The regions or countries around the equator that are planned to collaborate with BJ until 2021 are: India (BJ XI 2011), Arab countries (BJ XII 2013), countries on the African continent (BJ XIII 2015), Latin American countries (BJ XIV 2017), Pacific Island countries and Australia, including Indonesia as the Archipelago (BJ XV 2019)—due to the unique scope of this event, BJ XV can be referred to as the ‘Ocean Biennale’, and finally, countries in Southeast Asia (BJ XVI 2021).

Alongside BJ, in the intervening years, YBY also held the Equatorial Symposium (SK). Based on knowledge exchange, SK serves to expand the scope, work, and new networks built by BJ, which in each of its events is limited to cooperation with one region or even one country in particular. SK is designed to maintain existing relationships and, at the same time, build new relationships along the equator. The first SK was held in 2014, and will be held every two years (2016, 2018, 2020). The work of BJ and SK will ultimately culminate in the Equatorial Conference in 2022.

Why Khatulistiwa?

The concept of the ‘equator’ is not only envisioned as a framework that accommodates similarities, but also as a starting point for realizing the cultural diversity of today's global society. The ‘equator’ is a shared means of ‘re-reading’ the world.

The encounter through art activities in BJ Khatulistiwa will be held in the spirit of building sustainable networks, so that dialogue, cooperation, and partnerships can give rise to new, broader, and more sustainable collaborations among practitioners in the equatorial region. In this way, BJ can contribute to the formation of a newly defined global art landscape.