Literary Biennale 2005 puts RI on world map

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale 2005 opened to a full house at the Komunitas Utan Kayu (KUK) in East Jakarta on Thursday.

Festival organizer Juliana Wilson of the KUK cultural center told The Jakarta Post that the goals of the event were threefold: "To promote exchange and dialog between all parties participating in the festival, both artists and audiences; to promote freedom of thought and expression in Indonesia; and to provide an unparalleled educational opportunity for audiences to experience modern world literature."

"The festival also aims at exposing Indonesian literary arts to the outside world," Juliana said.

Starting Aug. 25, Teater Utan Kayu (TUK), the literary and dramatic arts division of KUK, is hosting the third International Literary Biennale that features 35 Indonesian and foreign writers and poets including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler of the United States.

The festival opened in Bandung on Aug. 25, and traveled to Lampung on Aug. 29, and from Sept. 1 through Sept. 3 spent three days at Teater Utan Kayu in East Jakarta.

Wilson said that in Bandung and Lampung, reception from the audience was very heartening. "The seats were always full and most of the audience were young people," she said.

Two cities in Java that were known for their culture, Surakarta and Yogyakarta, had hosted earlier festivals.

Bandung and Lampung were chosen this time around because they too had robust literary and art communities, Wilson said.

The success this time around meant it was likely future festivals would be bigger and include more cities.

"If we find partners, the festival could also be held in cities like Makassar or Medan," she said.

Writer Martin Aleida, one of participants in the festival, said that the Literary Biennale was a rare opportunity for Indonesian writers to come out of the box.

"As far as I am concerned, we have been for so long captivated by styles promoted by Western artists, and this festival will open our eyes to the richness of non-Western traditions," he told the Post.

Artists from countries like Suriname, South Africa and little- known Cura Gao had broken new ground in their story-telling methods, he said.

"While we (Indonesians) are busy stating our indignation about the social and political situations, I have learned that a poet from Cura Gao has written a poem that constitutes a celebration of life. We should lighten up a bit."

With this year's theme "Living Together", the festival was organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, the Prince Claus Fund and Stichting Winternachten of the Netherlands, the Australia-Indonesia Institute, the Selasar Sunaryo Art Space and Komunitas Rumah Panggung.