INDONESIA PAVILION PRESENTS “PRINTING THE UNPRINTED” AT THE 61ST VENICE BIENNALE

Images courtesy of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Indonesia/Indonesia Pavilion

Living Laboratory

Amid Venice’s canals and storied architecture, Indonesia arrives with a pavilion that blurs the boundaries between archive, imagination, and artistic production. Rather than presenting a conventional exhibition, the Indonesia Pavilion unfolds as an evolving space where printmaking becomes a method of tracing memory, revisiting history, and imagining alternative narratives across cultures and generations.

Presented at the 61st International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia, “Printing the Unprinted” brings together seven Indonesian artists in a residency-based project developed directly in Venice. Hosted inside the historic Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, the pavilion unfolds through exchanges with local printmakers and Venice’s longstanding graphic traditions.

“We believe that culture is not just heritage, but the foundation for the future. Indonesia is present not only to introduce our culture to the world, but to actively shape global conversations through art,” says Fadli Zon, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Indonesia.

Presented by Interni Cipta Selaras

Rather than arriving with completed works, the artists spent two months living and working in Venice, allowing the city to become part of the creative process itself. Using printmaking as its central language, the pavilion traces how stories, memories, and cultural knowledge move between Indonesia and Venice through shared histories.

Curated by Aminudin TH Siregar, the project centers around an imagined 15th-century manuscript titled Mentjap jang Tiada Bertjap: Plajeran Agoeng (Printing the Unprinted: The Great Voyage), attributed to the fictional archivist Datu Na Tolu Hamonangan. The speculative chronicle retraces an imagined maritime journey from Lake Toba to Venice, inviting audiences to reconsider how histories are written, remembered, and retold.

Inside the pavilion, visitors encounter 21 etchings arranged around a monumental manuscript installation, with each of the seven artists contributing three works that reconstruct fragments of The Great Voyage. Rather than unfolding linearly, the exhibition moves like a layered visual archive shaped by different artistic languages, generations, and techniques.

Among the participating artists, Agus Suwage explores ambition, diaspora, and collective memory through symbolic imagery, while Syahrizal Pahlevi continues his socially engaged Mobile Woodcut Project documenting communities and landscapes throughout Venice. Nurdian Ichsan presents Well for Venice, a poetic vessel examining memory and the “ghost within” the self, while R.E. Hartanto bridges fictional history with contemporary Indonesian identity through realist portraiture.

Elsewhere, Theresia Agustina Sitompul revisits the colonial Mooi Indië aesthetic through carbon paper prints that expose invisible labor and systems of consumption, while Mariam Sofrina examines mythological landscapes through her Bukit Tunggul series. Completing the presentation, Rusyan Yasin contributes an autoethnographic scroll documenting the artists’ residency journey in Venice itself.

Beyond the exhibition, the pavilion also expands into mentorship and intergenerational exchange through a collaboration between Negeri Elok and the National Talent Management for Art and Culture, bringing together seven young Indonesian creatives with the exhibiting artists through workshops, printmaking, and art therapy sessions.

Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Indonesia and supported by the Danantara Indonesia Trust Fund, the Indonesia Pavilion will run from 9 May to 22 November 2026 at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, accompanied by talks, workshops, and symposiums exploring contemporary Indonesian art within a global context.