Independent Creative Art Spaces Leadership Training, Paris 2007

Name of your organisation: ruangrupa

 

Website of your organisation: www.ruangrupa.org

 

How is your organisation funded:

 

We are funded by HIVOS, Rain and some fundraisings are undertaken for big projects.

 

Explain what your organisation is about (to somebody who does not know about it).

 

 

It is an artists’ initiative founded in the year 2000 by a group of Jakarta based artists, a non-profit organization which focuses on supporting the development of art in the cultural context through research, study and documentation, along with intensive cooperation with the artists through exhibitions, artist residency program, art project and workshop.

 

 

 

We are open for any (visual) artist (group and individuals, Indonesian and foreign) who is willing to work in cooperation with us and are enthusiastic about sharing different opinions; exploring and experimenting the artist’s interaction with Jakarta urban environment.

 

We work together a lot with many other artists, in a horizontal structure to support and mediating fresh ideas who address visual art as a cultural practice which is interesting for debate in visual art and the relation with social – cultural discourse, especially pertaining to Indonesian contemporary culture.

 

ruangrupa also held International OK Video Festival (an international biennal video art festival since 2003), Jakarta 32 Degrees Festival (a biennal visual arts festival for university students in Jakarta since 2004), and projects about urban life (Picnic, Men At Work, Let The Kids Play etc)

 

 

 

Describe how your organisation is engaged in international cooperation and exchange.

 

 

 

 

ruangrupa has residency program that cooperate with foreign artists. And some arts institution in abroad have invited us to do residency at their place. The invited artists are from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Netherland, Sweden and Belgium.

 

 

 

ruangrupa as an artistic group also has been invited to attend and to exhibit arts project in some international events in visual arts, for example in 9^th International Istanbul Bienal, Gang Festival in Australia, Gwangju Biennale etc. In International OK Video Festival, ruangrupa screened video works from abroad, both works from group of artist or from individual artist.

 

Describe how your art space relates to the local community. If you are about to open an art space, explain how you related to the local community in your previous experiences.

 

 

 

 

ruangrupa puts its position equally with the community around it, that’s why the issues are always the closest issues to them.

 

 

 

 

in doing the art projects, ruangrupa always involves some communities in brainstorming to find the right angle of the projects.

 

 

 

A serial video workshop in 12 cities in Indonesia was held in cooperation with the local creative community in that 12 cities, including 3 cities outside Java island. The issues during the workshop were about the local issues in thai 12 different cities.

 

 

 

 

What are the major internal and external challenges your organisation is facing?

 

 

 

Internal: Lack of the right management style to run the organization, since all the artist initiatives have their own way to run their organization, that’s why we keep on learning what management is suit to ruangrupa.

 

 

External: Lack of smart critics to see what we have been doing and then help us to evaluate.Also lack of support from our government.

 

What are the main achievements and strengths of your organisation?

 

We are now known by public of art in Indonesia and in some part of the world.

 

We are focus in social and visual culture issues and and also in community based project.

 

The network we have is a wide network, both in Indonesia itself or in abroad.