With migration and encounter, cultures become non-sterile, contaminating each other and causing various types of mixed cultural expression. One of the forms is the birth of creole deemed inferior to its original language. Creoles are often found in formerly colonialized countries, such as Indonesia and many countries in the Oceania region. Broken Pitch, a young artist collective in Yogyakarta, responds to this by presenting a room full of papers written in creoles, a photocopier, and figures of masked children. The room tries to requestion the reality of mixed culture and defiance through language in the postcolonial society. Broken Pitch collaborates with Juanga Culture, an art room for North Maluku youths, who also designs various art activities to enrich the reading of Oceania culture in the context of art history, decolonialization process, structural repression, and imaginative cartography.
Cartography is construed as a tool to create non-neutral geopolitical imaginary boundaries laden with colonial practices, starting from the history of its discovery up to the depiction of human life based on it. It goes the same with various paintings and documents constructed to take side in a certain narrative. These kinds of products should be confronted with alternative narratives of critical nature. Greg Semu, an artist of Samoan descent, responds to this issue with his artwork ‘RED COATS + INDIANS 2.0’ (2019–2021) that reenacts the fragments of death of Captain Cook through the staging photography. Through this photograph series, Greg Semu desires to contest the history of colonialism as if it were deemed as an absolute truth, particularly the dominant discourse of Captain Cook hailed as a hero. In the same spirit, Salima Hakim tries to challenge and question the narrative “The March of Progress“, an iconic illustration of human evolution displaying the evolution phases from a male ape to a man, without any female version ever made. Her artwork ‘Herstory: if Knowledge is Power’ (2021) displays the reverse narrative, the human evolution phases in the female version enriched with the addition of genetic cross occurring on the eastern Indonesia islands in the past.
The dialog on the excess of colonialism occurs in the artworks of two artists based in New Caledonia: Antoine Pecquet, a French citizen who has been living for a long time in Nouméa, and Nicholas Molé, an artist of Kanak descent, the native tribe of New Caledonia. Through the digital collage artworks, Antoine Pecquet pours out his discomfort over the current circumstance where colonialism is viewed in the black and white frame. His artworks display the complexity of postcolonial relationship between New Caledonia citizens of European descent and the native inhabitants. While Nicholas Mole, through his political ideology, shows how the residues of French colonialism continue to operate, although the talks and efforts for decolonialization have been made, including the organization of referendum happening twice in his country.
Other than the artworks above, some spaces in the main exhibition serve specifically as a tribute to the female artist Sriwati Masmundari (1904–2005), architect cum cultural observer Y.B. Mangunwijaya (1929–1999), the curator Arnold C. Ap (1945–1984), and Pater Piet Petu (1919–2001). We think that the legacy of thoughts by these figures becomes highly relevant to be brought up again in the main exhibition of Biennale Jogja.
Until the end of her life, Sriwati Masmundari had preserved and developed the damar kurung lantern painting mostly documenting the life of people on the Gresik coast. The Sriwati Masmundari exhibition room was built by youths joined in the Damar Kurung Institute, an institution that studies and collects archives about damar kurung arts. Meanwhile, we present the thoughts of Mangunwijaya through two entrances, namely the reconstruction of colonialism history in the archipelagic region in the novel “Ikan-Ikan Hiu, Ido, Homa” (1983) and his political thoughts about decentralization of power in the book “Menuju Republik Indonesia Serikat” (1998). In addition to showcasing archives of photographs, clippings, and books written by Mangunwijaya, there are also public discussions and reading clubs attended by all walks of life who are interested in exploring the thoughts of Mangunwijaya from various perspectives.
In the main exhibition, a room has been prepared for highlighting the life course of Arnold C. Ap, a curator from the land of Papua, and Pater Piet Petu, a curator from the land of Flores. Both names are foreign in the studies about the history of curatorship development in Indonesia, which have been dominated all this time by Javanese curator names only. Although both are tightly attached and often framed within the discipline of ethnography, but in practice, both have performed many contextual curatorial works.
Arnold C. Ap was appointed curator of the Loka Budaya Museum of Cenderawasih University in 1978. Several months after the inauguration, he established the music group Mambesak and changed the designation of museum where he worked as ‘Mambesak Palace’. Arnold C. Ap did that so that the museum would no longer be seen as a warehouse for a collection of dead objects, but as a living cultural laboratory. The curatorial approach of Arnold C. Ap is unique and often bypasses the boundaries of museum walls. For example, he encouraged the inhabitants of Asei Island to bring back the bark painting art or khombow that had been once extinct for a long time.
Meanwhile, Pater Piet Petu has started to get interested in anthropology and ethnography since he participated in several scientific expeditions while attending Mataloko seminary as a priest candidate. He also had the opportunity to participate in several archaeological expeditions led by Dr. Th. Verhoeven in the 1950s. Between 1961–1962, when resuming his study in Nemi, Rome, he had the opportunity to travel around several European countries to learn museology. Before coming back to Indonesia, the high-ranking official of the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD) order requested Pater Piet Petu to build a museum in Flores. It was not until 1983 that the request was realized, when he established the Bikon Blewut Museum inside the Ledalero STFK complex.