Jakarta. Akin to “artisanal” or “handcrafted,” the term “curated” is commonly used in many establishments nowadays — it has become an au courant buzzword in the creative industry in Indonesia and beyond for the last several years.
A throng of fashion boutiques, whether inside a shopping mall or in the form of an online store, are now proudly claiming their merchandises to be well-curated. For instance, The Goods Dept., the epicenter of Indonesian emerging brands and designers, describes itself as a “curated department store” on its website.
What about the culinary world? Why yes, some cafés and teahouses in Jakarta would happily point out that they carefully curate their coffee beans and tealeaves, offering an immaculate selection for their patrons. Case in point: GAIA teahouse in Kemang, South Jakarta, has a so-called “tea curator.”
Recently as well, the term is used in events such as the ubiquitous pop-up markets in the city. Last year, the Euphoria Project, a brainchild of creative director Keenan Pearce, held a Curated Garage Market where creative influencers — as you can guess — curated their personal fashion items to be sold during the event.
Additionally, some websites now would mention that they curate their news and contents, each customized to their target audience.
If “curation” used to be an exclusive mainstay within the art world’s parlance, it seems that is no longer the case.
Art curation
According to Mia Maria Kresnadi, a Jakarta-based art curator and writer who co-curated the Singapore Biennale in 2013, curation in the art world refers to an act of selecting and placing a group of artists or artwork in a certain context, be it in a museum’s permanent collection display or a themed exhibition in various locations.
“Curating is also about selecting the quality of artwork, based on its context, handling of the medium and the conveyance of an issue or content through said medium,” she says. “There is also the matter of technical quality or the research depth of a content.”
In many art exhibitions she has worked on so far, Mia tends to start her curation process with a theme.
“We will find out which artist and artwork can represent this chosen theme well. Even if an artist has not created a work yet [for the exhibition], we usually will challenge the artist to explore the theme,” she explains.
In one of her favorite exhibitions to date, “Personal Project” at South Jakarta’s Dia.Lo.Gue Artspace in 2012, Mia challenged prominent contemporary artists like Agung Kurniawan and Anton Ismael to rethink their signature medium and style — aspects that made them famous in their “job” as an artist — and create something they had never done before.
“Here, a curator becomes the sparring partner for an artist to have a discussion with, whether about content or technical approach,” she adds.
“A curator also builds a bridge that connects the artwork with the public or the audience. That is the most important part of an art curation,” enthuses Mia, who is currently involved in the preparation for this year’s Jakarta Biennale.
Curating lifestyle products digitally
Among countless e-commerce websites sprouting in Indonesia in recent years, Shopdeca.com is one that claims to be the first curated online store in Indonesia when it was launched in 2013.
“We saw a niche in the e-commerce market of Indonesia that focused on curating, selecting and displaying both local independent designers and certain international brands, too. At that time, no other sites used the term, and the landscape was mostly filled with sites selling [cheap fast fashion items],” says founder Andreas Thamrin.
Andreas explains that the curation process of products featured on Shopdeca.com — with categories now ranging from womenswear and menswear to travel goods and home accessories — consists of selecting the right products for their customers and organizing them into certain collections.
“We speak to relevant designers and see what they have in their collection. Then we choose several products from their line,” adds Andreas, who last year also launched Sportdeca.com, a spin-off focusing on activewear.
Shopdeca.com also launched a campaign called “Curators Project,” where style influencers from any background “are given the free reins to explore and express their style through our goods,” says Andreas.
One of the curators for this campaign is Cindy Karmoko, a young fashion blogger known for her eye-catching style and ever-changing hair color. Now based in Milan, Italy, she is also working as a freelance stylist and fashion consultant besides maintaining her blog at Hippiegonemad.com.
Cindy says that she became interested in becoming a curator for Shopdeca.com after seeing how the online store merges local and international fashion and lifestyle brands.
“As a digital content curator, I selected a bunch of products to be presented digitally to the audience of Shopdeca. Basically, I chose my favorite things that I already analyzed and spoke about me as a person,” Cindy explains.
In her own curator page on Shopdeca.com, she showcased a number of items that suit her unique personal style, such as a skull-printed sweater by Cheap Monday and Tre Studio’s eccentric floor lamp — everything can be purchased online.
Of her curation, Cindy says, “Out of thousands of things on Shopdeca, I believe these items were the best, and people should definitely check them out.”
Whither curation?
Asked about her view on the new meaning of “curation” these days, Cindy thinks that it is a sign of the times.
“We live in a digital era where everyone can create something within seconds and sometimes there are too [many things] there to focus on,” she says, adding that as a digital influencer in the fashion industry, she can curate things that can be appreciated by her audience.
“This way, people who always search for the same brands or have a wrong point of view about local brands could find and appreciate new things,” Cindy adds.
This broader definition of “curation” has indeed become a byword for good taste and lifestyle, where a well-curated head-to-toe look or a table full of coffee accentuated with latte art is ready to be photographed and posted on Instagram. (Even by simply composing a Pinterest board, a person can claim to be a curator nowadays.) Eventually though, the arbiters who define this kind of “good taste” may fluctuate, depending on the creative trends gaining hold at a particular time.
Responding to this phenomenon, Mia Maria offers her caveat as a professional art curator: “I actually don’t really mind that the term is used for a clothing store or whatnot. But in some contexts, this kind of usage might make the role of a ‘curator’ taken too lightly.”
“In the context of creative industry, curators do not merely choose and select. They also must be involved in the process of production and the development of ideas, delving deeper intellectually and historically,” she notes. “In the realm of visual art, we need to understand aspects like history, philosophy and social studies, because art is not just a decoration — it is a form of thinking.”
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