Cover image: Indonesian wood artist Rudi Hendriatno and The last Fate Machine, at John
Curtin Gallery IOTA 24.

Think about your last trip overseas – Bali or Bangkok? A yoga retreat in India or a tour of African game parks? All these countries share common interests with Western Australia, like secure sea routes, species loss and global warming.

They also share a front beach to the Indian Ocean – in Africa alone, we’re talking Cottesloe Beach equivalents in coastal nations like South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, and Somalia, as well as island nations such as Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles. 

The idea of the Indian Ocean rim as our state’s neighbourhood has inspired artists and curators alike in WA in the past, prompting festivals, exchanges and even an Indian Ocean Rim art precinct at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, former director Alan Dodge’s inspired but unrealised ambition.

Sadly, enthusiasm and backing for these exciting ideas waned. Just like the teaching of Asian languages in Australia, various artistic initiatives with our neighbouring nations have faded away. With one exception – the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial, or IOTA, is a rarely heralded story of unparalleled excellence and survival. Put simply, IOTA is an invitation to connect meaningfully with our ‘Rim Residents’. In a turbulent world, that’s a gift for Western Australians.

I can still vividly recall the last Triennial in 2024, and IOTA’s astonishing exhibition at John Curtin Gallery alone. The work of Fatemeh Boroujeni was like a punch in the gut. Iranian-born and Perth-based, Boroujeni told us about Iran’s contemporary lionesses, women of incredible courage who have stood up to the current regime. Many died as a result, like 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of the ‘morality police’.

Boroujeni created the most poignant tributes to these (mostly young) women, carving traditional lioness statues for each soul, and assembling portraits of the women and their activities from video and social media – the new weapons against oppression and censorship.

I moved on to a more joyous sight – visiting Indonesian artist Rudi Hendriatno operating his Last Fate Machine, a gigantic sculpture of wooden cogs and wheels, as if replicating the complexity and brilliance of nature and the world in general. More astonishing is that Hendriatno never creates a sketch or drawing before starting his intricate works – the teak material in his artisan hands tells him instinctively what to carve and where to fit things.

As I was contemplating whether any recent art shows in other venues, including AGWA, had moved me even half as much (the answer was no), I learned another astonishing fact. IOTA 2024’s official international program occupied six art galleries, but another 65 venues and 70 exhibitions from Broome to Esperance – pretty much every art space in WA – were participants in IOTA’s satellite community festival.  

Last week I was reminded of all this when IOTA assembled a ‘Curatorium’ of ten curators from Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Kenya, Thailand and India in Perth. Over ten days, and including a lively ‘co-lab’ day of public sessions, they conjured up themes and artist lists for the next triennial in 2027. “The Indian Ocean is a space of plurality, where local and global, tradition and innovation, individual and collective are reflected,” says the co-lab blurb.

From modest beginnings, this visionary art venture is growing exponentially. And its ambition seems to be winning astute allies – – IOTA is now supported by the WA government, Creative Australia, the Centre for Australia-India Relations, the ASEAN-Australia Centre, Lotterywest and local sponsors like IOTA Ambassadors and the Forrest Research Foundation.

If IOTA says it will tackle “urgent and compelling themes”, every visit to the region brings you face-to-face with any number of them. For example, on a recent trip to Sri Lanka I encountered the work of Sivasu Bramanium Kajendran, his lovely female figures enshrouded in what look like semi-transparent blue saris.

A curator told me that the artist’s mother was swept away in the  2004 Boxing Day tsunami, and his ‘saris’ represent the enveloping sea. Another Sri Lankan artist Chudamani Clowes makes makeshift dwellings spattered with paint, depicting the flotsam and jetsam of refugee life in a world of rising tides.  

Architect Jimmy Thompson, an IOTA Ambassador and donor, says he supports this arts initiative because he wants Western Australians to “understand our own geography and celebrate and communicate to the world that we’re in an Indian Ocean city.”

Describing Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world is unhelpful, says Thompson. “We in fact lie in the most populous time zone and we’re on the edge of probably the most interesting pivotal ocean of the 21st century. So IOTA flips the whole narrative and celebrates our uniqueness.”

“Every year we tip in a bit of tax-deductible money and the Australia Council matches it dollar for dollar. It’s a way of people being able to go on trips or meet artists or just be exposed to people you otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to meet. Any opportunity to have cultural exchange within this city or region is a really beautiful thing.”

IOTA owes its birth and longevity to two women in particular, artist-curators and co-founders Carola Akindele-Obe (also executive director) and Jude van der Merwe.

“A group of us came together in about 2018 with the idea of revival of craft and our connection with the Indian Ocean,” explains Akindele-Obe. “There had been previous events like the Indian Ocean Festival and other craft biennials but they stopped. We talked to venues and John Curtin Gallery, Fremantle Arts Centre and many others said ‘yes, great idea.’

“We also held a community public meeting where we all presented our ideas of why we want to do this. We thought a handful of people would turn up – over 100 people came, mainly from the craft sector. So that was where the satellite festival of other art spaces came about. The government and Lotterywest have been supportive from the get-go.”

“IOTA raises the game for everyone, and our very underrepresented, unseen artists in WA actually get a platform,” she adds. “In 2022 we moved from being an informal group to an actual organisation with charitable status for deductible gift recipients. That meant we had to form a board which has helped us to strategise.”

IOTA is now actively working towards the next triennial in 2027. Already an exchange of artists and curators between WA and India is in train, sponsored by the Centre for Australia-India Relations. 

“They’ve been researching our artists for an exhibition of WA craft artists in India next year. And equally our Australian curators are going to India at the beginning of next year to research more fully and select Indian artists to exhibit in 2027.”

The ASEAN-Australia Centre also supported three international curators to come to Perth, while three artists will be sponsored to come next year. The IOTA Ambassadors have sponsored travel for curators from the African subcontinent, or purchased work, including from Indigenous Aboriginal arts centre groups that might want to exhibit. “So we’ve really opened it up,” says Akindele-Obe.

She says IOTA is “a bold, globally connected platform” for contemporary craft. But why ‘craft’ in the title, not the more encompassing ‘art’?

“Because craft is the underdog to contemporary art,” says Akindele-Obe firmly. “We really want to keep it there because all the ancestral knowledge and other things that people have been talking about through IOTA is embedded in craft – from craft come the first tools, the first things that humans made.” 

“I like that IOTA uses craft because it makes it much broader and more accessible to people, to a broader demographic. Everyone has craft in their lives, but not everybody might consider art in a Western sense is in their lives. I love the definition that craft is just being human and expressing one’s humanity.”