In 2022 “Lumbung” entered the vocabulary of the art practitioners of Europe, marking a pivotal moment in the artistic and curatorial discourse. 2022 was the year in which ruangrupa, a collective of artists initiated in 2000 in Jakarta, was nominated Artistic Director of the fifteenth edition of the German quinquennial art exhibition. Held in Kassel since 1955, Documenta has positioned itself since its first edition as an exhibition not merely focused on the art market, but devoted instead to research and socially engaged art practices, operating as a tool to “measure the temperature” of the contemporary discourse on the arts, opening questions and offering turning points in the span of its five years reiteration.
For the first time in 2022, its Artistic Direction was assigned to a collective of artists from Jakarta. This sentence must be deconstructed. For the first time to artists; to artists organized in the form of a collective; and to artists organized in the form of a collective who are based in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. To these three first times, we should also add a fourth one: it was also the first time ever that Indonesian art practitioners took part in Documenta.
ruangrupa came to Kassel proposing their method, called “lumbung”. It is rooted in the traditional Indonesian agrarian practice of storing the surplus of harvested rice into a common barn, in order to redistribute it according to necessities, through a communitarian decision making process. This agrarian metaphor has been applied in the field of contemporary arts and culture by the collective, to become the method for a processual co-making of a rhizomatic and horizontal infrastructure, structured in multiple nodes interconnected between them. This “structure of structures” gathered more than the (at least) 1.500 artists and collectives which attended the 100 days of the exhibition. Meeting through “Majelis” (Assemblies) to collaborate and organize together, the participating artists, the curators, and the artistic team were especially focused on nurturing a “South to South” network of solidarity, while at the same “anchoring” it to the local “ecosystem” of Kassel while opening connections with various artists and collectives based in Europe.
Charles Esche defined documenta fifteen as “The First Exhibition of the Twenty-First Century”. Despite surviving with dignity through scandals and accusations of anti-semitism especially directed to Taring Padi’s work People's Justice, it should be acknowledged that the majority of the press did not give adequate space and time to the Lumbung practice to unfold its infrastructural and economic relevance–with its many projects, working groups and initiatives conceived to last beyond those 100 days–while at the same time many solidarity letters, official statements in support of ruangrupa from artists and workers were published. documenta fifteen anticipated the clashes happening between infrastructural critique and institutional and economic agendas, on issues such as tokenism and representation, addressing mutual support structures and performative alliances. We witness an increasing number of art events and institutions addressed by solidarity letters, statements, or marked by withdrawals from institutional positions for ethical reasons, as tangible manifestations of the tensions occurring also in the art system in our contemporary times and geopolitics, marked by “an economy of genocide”, in the words of Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied.
Despite the growing number of projects and open calls focused on “ecosystems”, as well as the wide resonance given to practices of togetherness and commonings, unfortunately in the Italian context the impact and the relevancy of ruangrupa’s practice are just starting now to be understood and brought into the contemporary discourse. We might see reverberations of its influence in the increased awareness and firmness of one’s own positioning and the need to commit to solidarity movements and political alliances to carry on a militant infrastructural critique, as for example has been happening in the ongoing protests taking place at Biennale di Venezia 2026, where Taring Padi’s participation has been having a complete different resonance, or in a renewed attention and acknowledgment to horizontal and grassroots infrastructures within the arts system, incompatible with the ‘90s relational aesthetic.
Maybe there is a case that could inspire further the art workers who still desire to engage with the Biennale format, and that could be Jakarta Biennale, especially referring to its 2024 iteration. Initiated in 1974 by a group of artists through Dewan Kesenian Jakarta (Jakarta Art Council), is indeed an interesting case to understand how the Lumbung practice can offer art and cultural practitioners, offering a practical example of common organization, management and curatorial practice.
From 1974 to the present, the Jakarta Biennale has faced numerous challenges due to unstable economic support from institutions—particularly government agencies—and poor understanding of the potentiality of hosting a Biennale, both from the Jakarta city government and Indonesia national government. In 2024, the 50th anniversary, this situation remains unchanged, facing the challenges posed by the very limited financial support from the Jakarta city government. However, the fact that the event has survived for half a century and continues to exist demonstrates that the Jakarta Biennale's true strength lies not in a stable funding system, but instead in the full involvement of Jakarta’s art and culture people as its driving force. Since its inception, the majority of the Jakarta Biennale's management and committee have been artists from the Jakarta artist ecosystem, including ruangrupa, or at least individuals affiliated with ruangrupa. The fact that the Jakarta Biennale is 50 years old and its survival is driven by the strong will of the Jakarta artist ecosystem is noteworthy.
Borrowing from Martin Suryajaya, Nyak Ina Raseuki, and Amy Zahrawaan’s analysis of the emergence of the terms "ecosystem" and "lumbung" in the Jakarta art discourse, it can be argued that awareness of the importance of continued survival drives the consolidation of resources. And this was done at the 2024 Jakarta Biennale which used the Lumbung method in its implementation (it should be emphasized here that Lumbung is a method of implementation and not a curatorial idea or theme). The discussions around its 50th anniversary marked the coming back of the initial spirit of the event, oriented to operate as a space for artists, which decided to constitute themselves as “Majelis Jakarta”.
The concept of “majelis” is closely related to the concept of “lumbung”, which has been widely introduced by ruangrupa. As stated in In the Process of Becoming: Reflections from the Innards of Jakarta Biennale 2024:
“The meaning or essence of a ‘majelis’ (assembly) is not who is present but the dynamics of conversation and collective decision-making. This means that we need to see 'majelis' first of all as a verb and not as a noun. Thus, what matters next, secondly, is the dynamics of conversation and the dynamics of joint decision making, not what entities are part of or members of the assembly, as if it was a noun. Of course, again, the process, and who is in the process, cannot be separated. What I mean is that the concentration of our discussion of this ‘majelis’ needs to be placed first in the process. My suspicion is that by seeing ‘majelis’ as a verb, we are slowly refining it as a ‘method’; by seeing it as a noun, we are slowly reducing it to a commodity”.
The Majelis Jakarta was formed from entities already present in the database or network of the Jakarta Biennale, mirroring the diversity of artistic and social practices and of the distribution in Jakarta, while sharing an attitude to collective work, the willingness to work together using lumbung as a method, and giving one another the freedom to participate in equity, respecting and according to each one’s capacity and time available, in the framework of gotong royong (“working together”), for mutual cooperation and collaborative work, able to decentralize power and to guarantee sustainability within the art collectives.
The “structure of structures” that originates from the lumbung method and the majelis as a form of assembling, is open to multiple readings and interpretations. As stated in In the Process of Becoming: Reflections from The Innards of Jakarta Biennale 2024, it could be the first step in a process of joint working efforts between the collectives that are part of the Majelis Jakarta. This process could be described as a meta-collective. Meta-collectives, as Martin Suryajaya et al. put it, exist because of "...the need to consolidate the diversity of alternative spaces into a working-together platform.".
Unlike Documenta, which discontinued the Lumbung method after being introduced to it, the 2026 Jakarta Biennale will continue to use that system. So, while documenta fifteen saw Lumbung as a kind of curatorial framework, the Jakarta Biennale aims to be a kind of hard drive and soft drive for the Jakarta Biennale itself. The 2026 Jakarta Biennale, a continuation of the 2024 edition, will be organized by Majelis Jakarta, an association of no less than 10 art collectives in Jakarta. This organizing system is seen as effective and successful in organizing the Jakarta Biennale amidst limited resources, with all its advantages and disadvantages.
Jakarta Biennale and Majelis Jakarta therefore represents the practical example of a biennial that, through a process of collective resignification and reorganization, has managed to re-position itself in the contemporary art discourse as a space of possibility and collaboration. It is the paradigm that needs to be rethought. Only after activating and allowing multiple forms of commoning practices to take place, it will be possible for “lumbung” forms, and their co-making and co-creating processes to start to harvest the many ways in which they try to respond to the question: “How do we want to live together?”. That will probably mark the activation of a translocal playground, with multiple temporalities, blended forms and smuggled practices across contexts and geographies.***
1 For an overview of this and other Lumbung Values, see https://documenta-fifteen.de/en/glossary/, accessed on 18 May 2026.
2 As in the Glossary section of documenta fifteen webiste: “Ekosistem is the Indonesian term for ecosystem, developed in reference to, but not synonymous with, the ecological concept of ecosystem. “Ekosistem” or “ecosystem” describes collaborative network structures through which knowledge, resources, ideas, and programs are shared and linked”. See https://documenta-fifteen.de/en/glossary/, accessed on 18 May 2026.
3 Charles Esche, “The First Exhibition of the Twenty-First Century—Lumbung 1 (Documenta Fifteen), What Happened, and What It Might Mean Two Years On,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art 24, no. 1, 2024, pp. 5-14.
4 For those who are not familiar with those events, we suggest to go through the rich literature already present. Among the many interesting and important articles, we want to suggest reading Bridget Fleming’s “Shaping Community: The Cultural Politics of Lumbung at Documenta Fifteen”, ASAP/Journal, Volume 9, Number 2, May 2024, pp. 289-317, since it encompasses and mentions many critiques and controversies.
5 For an examination of the extended literature already present on the topic, which also explores the shifts activated by ruangrupa’s Lumbung practice in opening models and alternatives to Western systems, reshaping spaces, relationships and power structures we suggest to read at least the articles from Agung Kurniawan, Angga Wijaya, Bridget Fleming, Charles Esche, David Teh, Gerardo Mosquera, Martin Suryajaya, Melani Budianta, Mirwan Andan and Thomas Berghuis included in Dari Ruang Tamu ke Lumbung: 25 Tahun ruangrupa curated by Ayu Maulani, Ayu Tantri, Bagus Purwoadi, Berto Tukan and Paola Pietronave, published in 2025 by Marjin Kiri, Jakarta, with translation from English by Ninus Andarnuswari and Mirza Jaka Suryana.
6 Lumbung Community, “We are angry, we are sad, we are tired, we are united: Letter from lumbung community”,https://www.e-flux.com/notes/489580/we-are-angry-we-are-sad-we-are-tired-we-are-united-letter-from-lumbung-community, accessed on 18 May 2026.
7 Francesca Albanese, Dall'economia dell'occupazione all'economia del genocidio: Rapporto della Relatrice Speciale Onu per i diritti umani sui territori occupati da Israele, Paper First, Roma, 2025.
8 Hakim Bishara, “Historic Strike Disrupts Biennale as Thousands March in Venice", https://hyperallergic.com/historic-strike-disrupts-venice-biennale/, accessed on 18 May 2026.
9 Galassia,”Training the Muscle of Resistance: Anti-Zionist Mobilisations in the Field of Art”, https://www.neroeditions.com/docs/training-the-muscle-of-resistance/, accessed on 18 May 2026.
10 Martin Suryajaya, Nyak Ina Raseuki, and Amy Zahrawaan, “Collective and Becoming-Collective: The Evolution of Discourse on Art Collectives in Jakarta, 2000-2022”, Jurnal Masyarakat dan Budaya, Volume 25 No. 1 Tahun 2023, pp. 19-34.
11 Berto Tukan, “In the Process of Becoming: Reflections from The Innards of Jakarta Biennale 2024”, in Curatography. The Study of Curatorial Culture, ISSUE 8 ISSUE 14 Curating and Re‑public / Re‑commons, 2025.
12 For the members of Majelis Jakarta, you can see it on the website of Jakarta Biennale: https://jakartabiennale.id/.
13 “The term "gotong royong," familiar to Indonesians, is used in Javanese to translate "gotong" (lifting) and "royong" (together). This means lifting something together, working together, and collectively making or agreeing on a decision,” Sarlota Naema Sipa, “Gotong Royong”, https://esi.kemdikbud.go.id/wiki/Gotong_Royong, accessed on January 8 2025.
14 Berto Tukan, “In the Process of Becoming: Reflections from The Innards of Jakarta Biennale 2024”, in Curatography. The Study of Curatorial Culture, ISSUE 8 ISSUE 14 Curating and Re‑public / Re‑commons, 2025.
15 Berto Tukan, “In the Same Soil-Water, Different Seasons: The Emergence of Art Collectives in the Discussion of FIXER 2021”, in Articulating FIXER 2021: Readings of Indonesian Art Collectives in the Last Ten Years, ed. Bagus Purwoadi (Jakarta: Yayasan Gudskul Studi Kolektif), 2021.
16 Martin Suryajaya, Nyak Ina Raseuki & Amy Zahrawan, “Collective and Becoming-Collective: The Evolution of Discourse on Art Collectives in Jakarta, 2000-2022”, Jurnal Masyarakat dan Budaya, Volume 25 No. 1 Tahun 2023, pp. 19-34.