Art festival opens in Indonesia
Art festival titled "the Biennale Jogja X-2009" opened in Indonesia's Yogyakarta province Friday, Kompas daily reported on Saturday.
The Minister for Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik in his opening remarks said that culture could craft a nation's identity, making it much more important compared to tourism.
Therefore, the government through the ministry will allocate bigger budget for culture development.
The government pays intention heavily on culture development, Jero said, adding that the government sells culture for the sake of tourism should be erased as culture has a more important position for the nation.
"We won't lessen culture development. Instead, we will increase budget allocation for it every year," Jero Wacik said.
Director of the Biennale Jogja X Butet Kartaredjasa said that all these years, there has been tendency of misunderstanding in valuing culture. According to Butet, many parties said that culture is goods to be sold. The consequence is that the success of an art exhibition is often measured by merely quantitative aspect.
Related to the event, Butet said that with theme of "Jogja Jamming", the Biennale Jogja X tries to exit from such kind of view.
"Culture should not be meant as dead thing that could be sold and valued economically because culture is an act that could move people," said Butet.
The Biennale Jogja X will last from Dec. 12, 2009 to Jan. 10, 2010, performing various art works in four big showrooms and tens of points of public room in the city.