Simposium Khatulistiwa (2010-2018)

In 2010, the Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation designed and launched the Jogja Biennale project as a series of exhibitions with a long-term agenda that ran until 2022. The Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation was determined to position Yogyakarta—and Indonesia more broadly—as a location that must be taken into account within the international art constellation. Amid a highly dynamic global art scene—which appeared inclusive and egalitarian—the hierarchy between the center and the periphery remained very real. Therefore, the need for intervention became urgent.

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

From 2011 to 2021, the Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation organized the Jogja Biennale as a series of exhibitions based on one major theme, namely Khatulistiwa (Equator). This biennale series set specific geographical boundaries on planet Earth as its working area, namely the region stretching between 23.27° N and 23.27° S. In each edition, the Jogja Biennale worked with one or more countries or regions as “partners,” inviting artists from 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 began by traveling westward. The Jogja Biennale did not begin this journey eastward, as it recognized the limitations of knowledge about the Pacific and even the archipelago itself.

The regions or countries around the equator that collaborated with the Jogja Biennale up to 2021 were: India (2011), Arab countries (2013), countries on the African continent (2015), Latin American countries (2017), Pacific Island countries and Australia—including Indonesia as the Archipelago (2019), which, due to the unique scope of the event, was also referred to as the “Ocean Biennale”—and finally, countries in Southeast Asia (2021).

Alongside this program, in the intervening years, the Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation also held the Equator Symposium. Based on knowledge exchange, this symposium served to expand the scope, work, and networks developed through the Jogja Biennale, which in each edition was limited to cooperation with one region or, in some cases, a single country. The symposium was designed to maintain existing relationships and to build new ones along the equatorial region. The first symposium was held in 2014 and subsequently took place every two years (2016, 2018, and 2020). The work of the Jogja Biennale and the Equator Symposium ultimately culminated in the Equatorial Conference in 2022.

Why Khatulistiwa?

The concept of Khatulistiwa or 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. It is a shared platform for "re-reading" the world. It 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 equator region. Therefore, it can contribute to the formation of a newly defined global art landscape.

For some people, the specific term equator can carry a romantic resonance. For the participants of this symposium, however, the imaginary line of the equator becomes both deeply actual and prospective—inviting concrete and sustained engagement. The equatorial region is actual because we all reside within it, amid its dynamics and the diverse problems that are continuously confronted and negotiated.

The Equator Symposium consistently brings together people across generations, disciplines, and fields of expertise. It provides a space and an opportunity to share valuable experiences and perspectives. The diverse practices and lived experiences exchanged among participants will truly accumulate into a body of knowledge—and will continue to grow. They form interconnected sequences that cannot be separated, becoming a shared wealth because we are united by convictions and hopes that have been lived out and continue to be realized.

The Equator Symposium is grounded in the intention and spirit of meeting and gathering. Extending and expanding the equatorial belt of relations initiated in the Biennale Jogja Equator series, the symposium is an effort based on the belief that goodwill still persists, and that initiatives and work to foster equitable and peaceful coexistence among people are real and ongoing around us. Without positioning itself as an antithesis to the North or the West, the symposium is rooted in the existing socio-historical relationships among the nation-states that inhabit the equatorial belt, in order to explore various potentials for encounter and fellowship in the present and the future.

We imagine that the outcomes of these encounters can become an important contribution—not only for the participating nation-states, but also beyond them. By echoing Soekarno’s address before the United Nations General Assembly on September 30, 1960, this Equator Symposium seeks to direct its focus toward the many possibilities we can pursue together for the emergence of a “new world order.”