Keynote

ruangrupa regards space as their primary material. You can see it reflected in last year’s documenta fifteen, arguably their best known and largest to date public endeavor in sustaining many inter-lokal networks and relationships through lumbung. It is also indicative of how they began (like many other Indonesian collectives) by renting house after house in the south of Jakarta. In the VLC Forum 2023 keynote lecture, ruangrupa member farid rakun shares a story of using space as a guiding tool to give some sense to the collective’s journey to date.

Ruang, or “space”  in Bahasa Indonesia, rooted in Sanskrit, acts as one of the primary sources of energy in the collective’s interventions and activities. It has remained a constant—a driving force that has found various translations since the collective was founded in 2000: from versions of ruru houses (or huis, or haus), to exhibitions at institutional spaces, or different strategies they have carried out in their own localities. The establishment of the informal educational platform Gudskul in 2018, done hand-in-hand with Serrum and Grafis Huru Hara, functions as the latest iteration of this translation.

Space is also a source of collective struggles, a source that has made practices like ruangrupa, like many others they’ve met along the way, worthwhile in sustaining. Space makes it possible to create bonds, to build solidarities, to be continued…

Trained as an architect (B.Arch from Universitas Indonesia and M.Arch from Cranbrook Academy of Art), farid rakun wears different hats depending on who is asking. He is a part of the artists’ collective ruangrupa with whom he co-curated SONSBEEK ’16: transACTION (Arnhem, Netherlands, 2016)and contributed to the collective artistic direction for documenta fifteen (Kassel, Germany, 2022).

ruangrupa is a Jakarta-based collective established in 2000. It is a non-profit organization that strives to support the idea of art within urban and cultural context by involving artists and other disciplines such as social sciences, politics, technology, media, etc, to critically observe and engage with  Indonesian urban contemporary issues. ruangrupa also produces collaborative works in the form of art projects such as exhibition, festival, art lab, workshop, research, as well as book, magazine and online-journal publication.