Literary Biennale 2005 puts RI on world map
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.