Education Resources for Teachers and Students
Download the full education kit HERE
The band Sangkakala photographed for Biennale Jogja X 2009 photographic print 84 x 119 cm
On Tradition: Contemporary art from indonesia
Esteemed Indonesian art critic Sanento Yuliman penned many essays that identified what he saw as a troubling tendency to place Indonesian visual art on a linear path from tradition to modernity; a path which further led to the division of Indonesian art practices into categories of high and low, old and new, craft and contemporary. In On Tradition we see how Indonesian artists today, 30 years after Yuliman’s death, take up his challenge to deconstruct these binaries.
On Tradition presents 13 artists and collectives working with traditional art practices in contemporary contexts—both those with contemporary practices that draw on tradition, and those bringing traditional practices into the contemporary art world. While the contemporary and the traditional have often been seen as binaries when looking at Indonesian art, On Tradition seeks to explore the crossovers and new forms which are developing across the archipelago. Alongside artists working in Java and Bali, the exhibition features an equal number from outlying areas such as Sumba, North Maluku, West Timor, North Sumatra, Kalimantan and West Papua. Working in a variety of media, the artists address the pressing issues of our time—gender justice, ecological threat, maintenance of culture and systematic inequality—through engagement with traditional art practices. Whether with criticality, nostalgia, documentary precision or whole-hearted embrace, the works in On Tradition show that artists’ relationships with tradition are not a straight line from the past to the future, but a vibrant cycle of perpetual reimagining.
Scroll down for suggestions and activities for teachers and students.
CURRICULUM AND SYLLABUS LINKS
Teachers are encouraged to adapt this education resource for their curriculum, in and outside NSW. This education kit makes the following connections to:
Visual Arts NSW Stage 5 and 6 Syllabus:
Art Criticism/Art History Focus area:
Practice: Concepts of the conventional and unconventional/Art history mapped as ancient, traditional and contemporary (new).
Conceptual Framework: Dialogues in art as a response to Time and Place/customs, beliefs and processes through linage or national identity
The Frames: The old with the new: incorporation of traditional art customs with contemporary ideas and processes
Art Criticism and Art History Outcomes:
Stage 5 Course: 5.7, 5.8, 5.9, 5.10
Stage 6 Year 11: P7, P8, P9
Stage 6 HSC Year 12: H7, H8, H9
International Baccalaureate Diploma Syllabus:
Theoretical Practice
Visual Arts in Context: Students examine artists working in different cultural contexts and seek to understand the limitations and possibilities to discuss historical events through artmaking.
Visual Arts in Methods: Students look at different techniques for making art. Students investigate and compare how and why different techniques have evolved, and the processes involved.
Curatorial Practice
Visual Arts in Context: Students develop an informed response to work and exhibitions they have seen and experienced.
Visual Arts in Methods: Students consider the nature of “exhibition” and think about the process of selection and the potential impact of work on different audiences.
Niluh Pangestu Fight the Flame 2024 offset ink on carved linoleum plate 112 x 112 cm
Vocabulary
Appropriation: to take something for one’s own use. In art this refers to the sampling of an image and redefining its established meaning through its involvement in new work.
Ancient: belonging to a time of long ago.
Contemporary: belonging or occurring to the present.
Conventional: things that are normal, ordinary and following the accepted way.
Recontextualization: is a process that extracts text, signs, or materials from its original context and reuses it in another context.
Tradition: the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
Non-conventional:things that do not follow the acceptable or normal way, but are eccentric, alternative or new.
Broken Pitch x Juanga Culture Boki Nukila vs Kolonial 2021/2024 (retouch) dimensions variable LED screen, microphone, speaker, flag and carpet
For Teachers
On Tradition invites the integration of Indonesian contemporary artists and their discourse into existing curricula and case study investigations. The exhibition provides an insight into Indonesian arts and its connection to culture and tradition. The exhibition brings art to the centre of Indonesian development and progression, stating that art is not bound by linear patterns or expectations. The artists in the show demonstrate that, in a country of ruptured political historic documentation, art does not hesitate to draw what it needs from the past to progress into the future.
Consider examining and teaching this exhibition as an in-depth study within a broader investigation of Art & Art Conventions, Art & Tradition, Art & Historical Practice or Art & National Identity.
Through these lenses students investigate the exhibition to examine the artists as social provocateurs, masters of their craft and educators. Across the two galleries the artists communicate through a diversity of media, employing significant Postmodern techniques that clearly present a case of the new and the old. Significantly, the recontextualization of processes, techniques and materials define the exhibition’s theme of ‘tradition’.
EXHIBITION QUESTIONS
The questions provided in this resource may be used for written responses, examination preparation, or for open-ended discussions in the gallery or the classroom.
Pre-visit Questions for Years 9 – 12
The title of the exhibition is On Tradition, what is your understanding of the world ‘tradition’? Push the boundaries of yours and you peers’ definition.
Are there art forms that belong to certain cultures, times or places?
Besides the time in which they are made, in your opinion what is the main difference between traditional and contemporary art?
Do we need to catagorise art? What is the impacts (positive and negative) of having catagorise such as good/bad, old/new, art/craft?
Have you ever been to Indonesia? What did you observe about their arts and culture?
Questions for Written Responses Years 11 – 12
Frames:
Investigate how and why contemporary artists sample the past and repurpose it for the present.
In your answer refer to 1 artist from On Tradition and 1 artist from your other studies.
Conceptual Framework:
Explain how artists can borrow concepts and approaches from other artists and yet their artworks are still regarded as original.
In your answer refer to 1 artist from On Tradition and 1 artist from your other studies.
Practice:
Analyse how traditions and conventions can influence artists’ practice.
In your answer refer to 2 artists in On Tradition and 1 artist from your other studies.
FOCUS ACTIVITIES
Here you will find On Tradition: Contemporary art from Indonesia artist questions for classroom discussions. These activities can be done individually or in connection with the suggested case study.
About contemporary art
in southeast Asia
Eluding simple definitions or falsely universalising connections between distinct histories and cultures, the art of southeast Asia is vibrant, dynamic and complex, bearing traces of “the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, and … the historical traces of colonisation and the often-traumatic birth of nations.”1 Artists from Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia explore local and global themes including personal and national identity and community, cultural knowledge, power, faith and the increasingly urgent impact of humans on fragile ecosystems.
Find out more
https://www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg/lifestyle/southeast-asia-art-indigenous-communities/
https://content.acca.melbourne/uploads/2018/02/Artist-Collectives-and-Communities-of-Practice-2.pdf
https://nga.gov.au/stories-ideas/collecting-the-artistic-voices-of-indonesia/
https://www.artshub.com.au/news/features/good-work-building-a-stronger-arts-ecosystem-2624953/
Kadek Dwi Darmawan, Hybrid Creatures III 2022, linocut print on paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
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