Bio

Alia Swastika

Alia Swastika has been Director of Biennale Jogja Foundation since 2018, following a long period of involvement with the organization. She has worked as Program Director for Ark Galerie (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) since 2008 and is actively involved as a curator, project manager, and writer on a number of international exhibitions. With Suman Gopinath, she was the co-curator of the Jogja Biennale XI, "Shadow Lines: Indonesia Meets India" (2011), and was one of the co-artistic directors for the Gwangju Biennale IX (2012): Roundtable. She also participated as the curator of a special exhibition of Indonesian artists in the 2012 edition of Art Dubai. She has extensive experience for her curatorial projects in Indonesia and abroad. Her recent curatorial works includes co-curating for Europalia Arts Festival Indonesia, for Contemporary Art Projects (2017); and “Songs for the People” (Art Sonje, Seoul, 2018). Most recently, she was a curatorial consultant for “Contemporary World: Indonesia” in 2019 at National Gallery of Australia. As the director of Jogja Biennale, she was a member of the International Biennale Association Board (2013-2017). She writes for Frieze, Art Forum, Broadsheet journal, and many others, as well as for numerous publications in Indonesia. Her book on female artists during the Indonesian New Order was published in 2019 with research funded by the Ford Foundation.