The Indonesian Visual Art Archive (IVAA) is a non-profit organization in Yogyakarta which is engaged in documentation, research, libraries as well as education and exploration of contemporary visual arts and culture. Initially (1995 -2007) this institution was named Cemeti Art Foundation (YSC), founded by Nindityo Adipurnomo, Melia Jaarsma, Agung Kurniawan, Yustina Neni, Raihul Fadjri, and Anggi Minarni. At that time YSC which was addressed at Jl. Patehan Tengah No.37, Patehan, Kraton District, is an institution supporting the creative process of Yogyakarta contemporary art practitioners in general. The forms of support provided include access to documents of Indonesian contemporary art from the 1980-1990 era, as well as documentation of the creative processes and works of contemporary Yogyakarta art artists. One of YSC's most important achievements at that time was the holding of a traveling exhibition of Indonesian contemporary art in Europe and Australia, entitled "AWAS! Recent Art from Indonesia, 1999-2001 "which was attended by artists who are now known as figures of Indonesian contemporary art, such as Arahmaiani, Agus Suwage, and Tisna Sanjaya.
In April 2007 the agency decided to focus its activities on a field that until now has rarely been carried out, namely the documentation of Indonesian visual arts, marked by the change of the institution's name to IVAA. To develop their services, since mid-2008 IVAA has been digitizing and building archival partnerships with various art institutions in Indonesia as well as publishing these collections to online networks. With the launch of http://www.ivaa-online.org in 2009, IVAA became the first Digital Information Center for Visual Arts in Indonesia. The IVAA database has stored thousands of reference data and all archives related to visual arts in Indonesia and also internationally, including recordings of artists' work processes and visual arts events in photo, audio-video formats, visual arts and culture reference books, exhibition catalogs, artist portfolio to audio visual/video art works.
Led by Farah Wardani, executive director of IVAA 2007-2014, IVAA has established itself as a node institution that brings together artists, researchers, students, curators, critics and various other parties in art infrastructure - both from Indonesia and abroad. In 2017 IVAA was named by Art Stage Jakarta as the Best Art Institution in Indonesia. In 2020, IVAA, which since 2011 has lived on Jalan Ireda, Gang Hiperkes MG I/ 188 AB, Kampung Dipowinatan, Keparakan, Yogyakarta 55152, is managed by Lisistrata Lusandiana (Director), Sukma Smita (Head of Office), Dwi Rahmanto (Head of Archives ), Edy Suharto (Library/General Staff), Rosa Pinilih (Finance Manager), Santosa Werdoyo (Librarian), and Hardiwan Prayogo (Archives Processer). Together with volunteers and apprentices, who are mostly young people, this independent non-profit organization continues to work in the field of visual arts documentation and its various uses, thereby helping to make Yogyakarta proud in the eyes of Indonesia and the world.***