Grace Samboh

I want to share some of my projects, completed or in progress, to demonstrate how roles are being played, taken, rejected or ignored within my environment. Throughout these projects, my question remains: Why am I doing this? And, what for?

With a number of colleagues from the Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation, we are struggling in holding the biannual Equator Symposium (since 2012). The symposium is planned to end in a meeting of as many individuals from all over the countries in the 2022 Equator Conference. With two of my best friends in Hyphen, we are doing a book on Indonesia New Art Movement (Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru Indonesia) 1975–1989. People say that they are the forefront of Indonesian contemporary art. With Melbourne-based artist Katie Lee and Yogyakarta-based artist Handiwirman Saputra, I tried to conduct an unstructured residency that was not planned to end up in an exhibition, but it did. With a rural-based collective Jatiwangi Art Factory, we organised a one-year festival involving more than 5,000 citizens and some 20 artists. With three other independent curators, I am working towards a retrospective exhibition of works by Moelyono (b 1957), who is a key figure for artistic practices involving many people – not only in an Indonesian, but also in a South-East Asian context.