About

24HR Art – Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art Darwin, Australia

immemorial
- a collaboration between Darwin and Yogyakarta

Opening on Sat 14 Nov

Venue:
Roommate 37b & iCAN

Australian Artists:
Tobias Richardson
Hayley West
Min Wong
Jenny Fraser
Catriona Stanton

Indonesian Artists:
Wimo Ambala Bayang
Maryanto
Carolina Rika
Lashita Situmorang
Sigit Bapak

Curators:
Sudjud Dartanto
Steve Eland

Sudjud Dartanto (Curator, Yogyakarta) and Steve Eland (Director, 24HR Art) are working in partnership to curate Indonesian and Northern Territory artists in the project titled immemorial: reaching back beyond memory.

immemorial offers an extraordinary collaboration and dialogue between Northern Territory artists and Indonesian artists. It is an opportunity to exhibit on an international platform within a current social and political context, endeavouring to invigorate dialogue between cultures by way of an amalgamation of research, artistic and critical practice within a curatorial construct.

The curatorial rationale of immemorial seeks to investigate commonalities of people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, as they consider their ancestral histories and their present notions of cultural identity.

Too often, cultural identity concentrates on the ‘differences’, particularly in the current global political environment; concepts of ‘difference’ can at times be an irrational construct.

However, the curators, in developing the rationale, believe family stories of ancestral journeys, displacements, triumphs, interruptions and secrets transcend political boundaries as recognisable common threads.

immemorial aims to break down these notions of ‘difference’ by transplanting ancestral investigations and common accounts into an exploratory visual language, invigorating discourse on cultural perspectives.

Throughout history people have migrated or dispersed by choice, force or need whilst others have been overwhelmed by dominant cultures, severing or enforcing genealogical ties.

This can have a significant influence on the understanding of cultural identity. As historical boundaries change, and political borders alter, one’s identity can be affected.

The rationale incorporates a much broader notion of cultural identity, many family histories have universal elements; these elements are not confined nor controlled by geographic or sovereign boundaries.

The research component is a crucial element of the project. It is designed to maintain the integrity of the collaboration and to give the artists a common reference point from which to explore their individual response to the rationale.

One of the outcomes will be the individual approaches taken to the research component, some may go to historical archives, some may simply talk to family members, some may be comfortable with the process, whilst others may find it challenging.

The artists will present their research, methodology and findings at a series of public forums.

www.24hrart.org.au