UNS – The Faculty of Art and Design (FSRD) of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta held an International Visual Culture Exhibition (IVCE) 2018 in Building 2 of the FSRD UNS. The exhibition, which will be held for 6 days ahead, presents dozens of the best works of local and foreign artists.
There are around 20 international artists from Afghanistan, Germany, Malaysia, Shanghai, Phnom Penh, Toronto, Marseilles, and New Zealand participated in this exhibition. Meanwhile, the local artists mostly come from Surakarta and Yogyakarta.
The exhibitions include graphic arts, sculpture, craft art, painting, video, textile design, photography, multimedia, new media, and much more. All the artworks carry the same theme “Transcoding” which means an action to produce new things from existing material.
The theme was chosen not only to criticize the heritage of art-culture which increasingly loses its interest and perpetrators as time goes by but also the depletion of natural resources because they are continuously exploited.
“Transcoding means how we rejuvenate the cultural and artistic heritage with creative forms and ideas. This is a critique of change that related to the conditions we are facing now, called era of disruption,” Ravik Karsidi as UNS Rector said while giving a welcoming remark at the opening ceremony of the exhibition on Monday (24/09/2018).
Chairperson of Organizers Sigit Purnomo found the enthusiasm of IVCE 2 exhibitors is getting higher and the selection process is getting tighter than the previous one. Thus, FSRD UNS recruited two external curators with international qualifications namely A Sudjud Dartanto (Curator of Indonesian National Gallery) and Yakup Mohd Rafee (Lecturer of the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, UNIMAS Malaysia). In addition, 5 internal curators from FSRD UNS namely Narsen Affatara, Nanang Rizali, Bedjo Riyanto, and Deny Tri Ardianto.
Sudjud explained that the successful work must meet several qualifications such as reflecting the spirit of transcoding, the concept of “green” oriented or environmentally friendly and showing new creativity both in terms of form and ideas.
At the end of his visit, Ravik hopes that this exhibition can increase knowledge and appreciation of artwork. In fact, Ravik wants IVCE become not only the annual agenda of the UNS FSRD but also Surakarta government.
“I propose to involve this agenda into the tourism calendar of Surakarta. Later for every year, foreigners will enjoy the interesting events at UNS,” he added. humas-red.uns/Ath/Dty