Yogyakarta Festival's art market gets attention
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
When the Yogyakarta Arts Festival's art market first opened 14- years ago, only 20 participants joined in and few visitors came to look at the offered products in the then week-long event held in the front yard of the city's Vredeburg Museum.
This year, however, more than 250 participants are taking part in the month-long art market. The organizer even had to turn down about 30 proposals due to limited space or because the products to be sold were not handmade handicraft items as required.
"We have considered that such restrictions were necessary otherwise the art market would be just like other ordinary markets," said Andree Suryaman, chairman of the art market division of the 2002 Yogyakarta Arts Festival (FKY).
According to Andree, who had been in charge of the FKY's art market since 1999 and taken part as a participant since it was first launched, not only Yogyakartan artists and handmade crafts producers participated in the arts market. In fact, 40 percent of them came from outside the province, including from West Java, Central Java, East Java, Jakarta, and even West Nusa Tenggara.
"Through the art market, we want to create a place where both producers and buyers can meet. Hopefully, it will play as a place to introduce new products, where prospective buyers can look for more competitive and innovative merchandise," said Andree, who owns a handicraft production house himself.
Some 4,000 visitors, according to Andree, visited the art market everyday, making it an effective place for promotion. Last year, for example, the organizing committee recorded total sales worth Rp 800 million during the month-long event, excluding a number of orders made during the event.
And it seems like the organizing committee has made their point clear to the traders. The traders understand that joining the art market is part of the promotion activity.
"Sometimes a day even passes without any single visitor buying our product. But we have made a total sale of up to Rp 3 million a day so far," said Tawondas' who sells various handicrafts made out of seashells from Situbondo, East Java.
Hendra Sucipto of Api Fauna Centra of Garut, West Java, once made a total sale of Rp 2 million in one day thanks to a Dutch buyer who bought samples of his products, which included various kinds of accessories like ties, brooches, hair clips, earrings and wall decorations made of bird's fur.
"We have also received orders from Malaysian, Australian, and Japanese buyers," said Hendra, who has been taking part in the event for several years.
The organizing committee itself, Andree said, did not charge anything for any sales or orders made during the art market, which opened June 7 and will close this Sunday. The traders are only required to pay between Rp 500,000 and Rp 750,000 to rent space of around nine-square meters each.
And so far, the art market is the only event in the festival which can contribute some Rp 25 million to the low-budget festival's organizing committee.
And the festival's deputy chairman Mahyar planned to make the art festival a permanent one, like Bali's Sukawati arts market or Jakarta's Ancol art market.
"In this case, the festival's annual art market becomes the place to select traders wanting to join the permanent art market," said Mahyar, who was chairman of the festival's art market division from 1995 to 1998.
By selecting traders through the festival's art market, every year the permanent art market would have new kinds of crafts, he added.
Actually, the Yogyakarta Art Festival's art market was not the first of its kind. In fact, it was inspired by the first art market organized by the Bandung Institute of Technology in 1974 by holding a day long art market along Jl. Ganesha street, Bandung. Then, the art market involved lecturers and students of the institute's school of fine art.