IBA Conversations – How to Unlearn and How to Learn: Alia Swastika

Alia Swastika, director Biennale Jogja Foundation. Courtesy Biennale Jogja

IBA Conversations: How to unlearn and how to learn

May 28, 2021
4:00pm – 5:30pm (London)

In a world in constant flux we are increasingly under pressure to modify ideological paradigms and perspectives which have perpetrated regimes of colonial oppression, gender and race inequality and led to fundamentally non-sustainable economic and social systems. As an organisation bringing together biennials from the whole world we strive for these changes to take place and allow the biennial model to be a space of inclusion, dialogue and awareness of social inequalities. For this process to take place we first need to reflect on what it means to unlearn the mental frameworks of our current system and come up with new ways of learning how to build something new.

We will reflect on this and much more during our upcoming event “How to unlearn and how to learn” taking place on May 28th at 4pm (UK time). The first invited speaker which we have the pleasure to introduce is Alia Swastika, director of Biennale Jogja Foundation.

Alia Swastika is now working as Director of Biennale Jogja Foundation since 2018 after her long engagement before with the organization. She has worked as Program Director for Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta, Indonesia since 2008 and is actively involved as a curator, project manager and writer on a number of international exhibitions. With Suman Gopinath, she was the co-curator of the Jogja Biennale XI, Shadow Lines: Indonesia Meets India (2011), and was one of the co-artistic directors for the Gwangju Biennale IX (2012): Roundtable. She also participated as the curator of a special exhibition of Indonesian artists in the 2012 edition of Art Dubai. She has extensive experience for her curatorial projects in Indonesia and abroad. Her recent curatorial works includes co-curators for Europalia Arts Festival Indonesia for Contemporary Art Projects (2017) and “Songs for the People” (Art Sonje, Seoul, 2018), and consultant curator for the Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia at the National Gallery of Australia (2019).

As the director of Jogja Biennale 2015, she was a member of the International Biennale Association Board (2013-2017, and she recently founded ‘Study on Art Practices’, a platform for research into contemporary art in Indonesia. She writes for Frieze, Art Forum, Broadsheet journal, and many others, as well as for numerous publications in Indonesia. Her book on Indonesian female artists during New Order was published in 2019 with the help of Ford Foundation for the research process. 

We hope to see you numerous and interested on May 28^th at 4pm London time!

Those who are interested in joining are asked to register here.

In order for a genuine and frank discussion to take place and due to the sensitivity of some of the subjects to be covered, these events will have limited availability with priority to be given to current members of IBA and those who are interested in joining.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@biennialassociation.org.