IndoAus Art Connection - more than just Batik & Boomerangs

An art-show of young Indonesian artists that aims to develop, promote and facilitate cross-cultural relations between Indonesian artists and Australian community. It is intended to help Indonesian artists gain exposure and build networks within the Australian art community and to strengthen and expand the Australian public’s understanding of modern-day Indonesian.

I hope to curate, highlighting modern Indonesian youth life and culture.  I hope to display the artwork of approximately 10 talented Indonesian artists under that age of 30. 

This art show aims to develop, promote and facilitate cross-cultural relations between Indonesian artists and Australian art galleries, collectives, dealers as well as the wider community. It is intended to help Indonesian artists gain exposure and build networks within the Australian art community and to strengthen and expand the Australian public’s understanding of modern Indonesian today.

As you are may be aware, understanding between Indonesian and Australian people are somewhat limited and often misguided. Australian education regarding Indonesia tends to focus on traditional aspects of society, such as Balinese dance and Wayangperformances, whilst mass media focuses predominately on negative aspects in Indonesian-Australian relations. Todays modern Indonesia is poorly represented in Australian media and society.
 

This art show will highlight the diversity of modern Indonesian culture, through exhibitions of contemporary artwork. Art is a universal medium that many people can easily relate to and engage in, regardless of socioeconomic background, culture, gender or age. This project will be accessible by the Australian public in informing and engaging them of the diversity of modern-day Indonesia.  This exhibition will provide Indonesian artists with business and social networks within the Australian art community, and with Australian’s more generally.


The central objective of this project is to promote Indonesia and it’s talented artists to the Australian public, that is, supporting improved cross-cultural understanding between Australia and Indonesia.

Currently, understanding between Indonesian and Australian people are somewhat limited and often misguided. Australian education regarding Indonesia tends to focus on traditional aspects of society, such as Balinese dance and Wayang performances, whilst mass media focuses predominately on negative aspects in Indonesian-Australian relations. Todays modern Indonesia is poorly represented in Australian media and society.
  This contributes to misinformed, inaccurate and often negative perceptions of Indonesia and it's peoples becoming increasingly commonplace within the Australian community.  Exposing Australian’s to the diverse cultures in Indonesia, through artwork, will help to cease the proliferation of negative stereotypes and contribute to increased societal tolerance.

Education is the key to tolerance and development.  Educating Australian's about Indonesia and it's cultures is imperative to improving our understandings of Indonesia and improving our tolerance to our bilateral differences. Art is a universal medium that many people can easily engage in, regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, genders and ages. This project is accessible by the Australian public in informing and engaging them of the diversity of modern-day Indonesia. This increased understanding is likely to encourage greater engagement of Australian's with Indonesia and potentially provide sources of income and exposure to young Indonesian artists. 

This art show will be an opportunity to showcase young Indonesian artists on an international scale.  The artists who participate in this project will directly benefit from international exposure and art sales. Australian audiences will benefit from learning more about modern Indonesian culture.  They will have the opportunity to view and engage with artwork and perspectives of young Indonesian people.  

Tracking and recording sales of all artworks - Sale of the artwork of Indonesian artists

Count the number of attendees to art show - Increased exposure of Indonesian art to Australian audiences

This is an innovative project as it uses both online and physical mediums to increase engagement and exposure to different cultures and lifestyles. Many other projects use high-level and political diplomacy processes to increase bilateral relationships, increase job opportunities and cultural exchange.  However, it is important to ensure that these opportunities and exchanges are also made on more humanistic levels, where communities are direct engagement.  This human-to-human engagement (rather than government-to-government) is a unique aspect of this project.

Although my project uses current technologies, I believe that harnessing the use of social media platforms as well as real-life interactions will be pivotal in contributing the better cross-cultural understandings between Indonesians and Australians.  Many Indonesian people and community who live below (or near to) the poverty line hard access to smartphones, despite having unreliable food sources or inadequate shelter.  Social media and the internet are excellent technologies that can be harnessed to give Indonesian's young creatives the opportunity to display and sell their works on an international platform. 

The use of smartphones/computers with internet access will allow Indonesian and Australian's to access information about the artshow and be a platform to highlight the participating artists.  The cost of access the site and socialmedia platforms will be almost negligable, as it is likely that users will already be in posession of or have access to a smartphone/computer that has internet access.  The monitary output for the individual is unlikley to be specifically for accessing the site, but rather for general phone/computer use.  The artshow and it's various socialmedia platforms will be promoted through the websites of Australia-Indonesia organisations.

This project will be not-for-profit and will be sustained on volunteers and funding support from organisations and government.  The major expenditure for this project in the cost of importing artwork, advertising and renting exhibition space.  However many of these costs will be able to be mitigated through cross-promotional links with organisations such as AIYA, AIBC and ACICIS who have already committed to providing free promotional material on their various platforms.  

The major factor limiting the ability of this project succeeding is attaining adequate funding.  Being a non-profit project it would be unethical to take a commission from the sales of participating artists.  As such, this project is reliant on private donations and corporate/government/organisational funding.  This is a limiting factor as it does not allow for a guarantee of continued financial support.  However, as this project is proposed to be an art exhibition, in the event that funding was halted, this is unlikely to impact the project majorly or cause a "waste of money" from funders.

As I am not affiliated with any organisation or company and all profits of sold artwork will be directly returned to the artists, these expenses will be otherwise born wholly by my own personal savings. 

It is estimated that the total cost to organise this event will range between $2,000-$2,500.  This will be used to cover to cost of shipping artwork from Indonesia to Australia (and back in the event that the artwork is not sold), advertising, producing and printing promotional materials such as posters and pamphlets, costs for mounting and displaying artworks as well as displaying artist profiles/artwork descriptions.

Currently no partners, however I  have continued support from the Australia Consortium of In-Country Indonesian Studies, Australia-Indonesia Youth Association and the Australia-Indonesia Business Council.  

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