When two good friends met in October last year for dinner in Hong Kong, little did they anticipate that they would be making history.  Hallam Chow is a Hong Kong resident and a lawyer by training. Honous Tantijono is an Indonesian entrepreneur working in Hong Kong. The two men have a common passion – collecting Indonesian art.

Over dinner, they hit on the idea of displaying contemporary Indonesian art at the Shanghai Expo, which starts in May and runs until October this year. This would be the first time that Indonesian artists would have exposure to a global audience at an international fair, and the two friends quickly got down to work.

They recruited a third member, businessman Haryanto Adikoesoemo, for the project and the three men soon pushed ahead by booking an empty slot during the expo and getting the paperwork done. The Indonesian exhibition is scheduled to open at the Shanghai Museum on July 22 and run until August 19.

“Most exhibitions are commercial in nature so artists go with the intent of selling their work,” notes Haryanto, president director and Group CEO of AKR Corporindo. “But what is unique about the Indonesian art exhibition is that we want to show it at its best so we are telling the artists to do their best and express themselves, without worrying about whether their work will sell.”

For South African Ambassador to Indonesia Noel Lehoko, the slogan his country has adopted for the upcoming World Cup – “Ke nako” (now is the time) – does not simply encapsulate the nation’s aspirations; it also summarises much of what his own life, hardships included, has all been about.

Ebullient and jovial as ever, he projects the optimistic mood that has been sweeping through his country in the build-up to the huge event, due to kick off in June. “We’ve already hosted international rugby and cricket events, and now football, so why not the Olympics next!” he declares with a huge grin.

The importance of sport to the process of nation-building is precisely what former president Nelson Mandela targetted in the run-up to the Rugby World Cup hosted by South Africa at its debut appearance back in 1995. The story is told in the feature film Invictus, on general release as the football event draws close.

Traditionally, rugby in South Africa was more associated with whites than blacks back in the early 1990s. “Football has always been the sport of the oppressed people in South Africa,” says Lehoko. 

However, Mandela initiated a huge wave of national support for the Springboks rugby team that propelled them to victory in the final and did much to bind the deep wounds that still festered in the immediate post-apartheid era.

Art entered Sarah Moerad Oestara’s life while she was still learning to walk. Both her grandmother and mother collected art – not because it was prestigious or expensive but because art connected them with their roots.

Sarah thus learned from an early age that art was part of her life, part of her inner core – even a part of who she is.

Every piece she possesses tells its own story. She does not focus on any particular art form but, rather, lets her feelings and emotions drive her decisions. As such, she has put together arguably one of the most eclectic collections around. She searches for pieces during her travels when she is relaxed and in an explorative mood.

“I collect things that hold great historical value and antique items because the journey of discovering these items is the real joy,” she says. “That is why I like going to bazaars and flea markets; that’s the real beauty of art.

“Every time I go travelling I return with more art pieces and then I have to think of where to put them so they blend in with what I already have,” Sarah says.