Asia Art Archive (AAA) and Para Site jointly announce the launch of Unconditional Trust: Indonesia, generously supported by Ms Virginia Yee. The programme offers six independent arts initiatives, collectives, artists, researchers, and arts practitioners in Indonesia an unrestricted grant of US$10,000. The aim is to provide foundational support for long-term visions, and to encourage sustainable practices such as overhead, operations, and infrastructure.
The grant recipients will be nominated by Indonesian arts practitioners, with the final selection undertaken by a panel composed of philanthropists based in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
Unconditional Trust: Indonesia generates new perspectives on community-building and positive structural change within the field of visual art. Through collaborations with the Indonesian art community, AAA and Para Site foresee the positive impact of this grant on our engagement with long-term, sustainable art practices and projects, contributing to the development of local art ecologies across the Asia-Pacific region.
AAA and Para Site’s concern for the arts ecosystem in Asia can be traced back to the two organisations’ earliest joint symposium held in 2001, “Space Traffic: Artist-Run Spaces Beyond a Local Context.” Building on recent engagements with Indonesia, the country has been selected for this edition of the grant. AAA collaborated with Jakarta-based collective Gudskul on The Collective School (2022–23), while Para Site has also featured artists, curators, and researchers in its residencies, international conferences, publications, exhibitions, and Workshops for Emerging Arts Professionals.
Unconditional Trust: Indonesia is made possible through Ms Virginia Yee’s support, with the intent to motivate greater philanthropy for local artists and communities. Yee, a prominent supporter of the arts, boasts twenty years of experience in the financial sector, and established the first women’s bank in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1980. Yee’s long-held interest in education and philanthropy is demonstrated by her initiation and sponsorship of two editions of Para Site’s NoExit Grant for Unpaid Artistic Labour from 2020–21. The current initiative supports arts education and hopes to inspire others to support their local art ecologies through Yee’s generosity.