a glimpse into a dystopic society
silhouette of hopes
Published Saturday, April 08, 2006 by unfinishedandroid.
An ongoing photos documentary following the life of moslem women in China (part one)--Living as minority in China is never easy, let alone as the female of the species, life doesn’t always deal them a good hand to play with. This is a story of ordinary people in China who merely trying to make ends meet whilst at the same time embracing their religious belief amidst the ever-changing modern day China. Told from a women point of view, this is an insight into their life, stories and voices.
A fragments of longing, of hopes on the ideal china dreams, a dream that were put on hold whilst everything else around them move at a neck breaking speed._an ongoing documentary works started in Shanghai since mid 2004.
_scheduled for exhibition in Jakarta in October 2006.
tempête dans un bocal
Published by unfinishedandroid.
Storm in My Bowl -- stories of Indonesian superwomenAs Asian economies boom and their governments grapple with claims for democracy and human rights, women have begun to play a key role in reshaping the traditionally male dominated culture of southeast Asia and Indonesia is no exception.
Women have often held second place in Indonesia. They have been valued as wives and mothers, but denied the educational and legal opportunities offered to men. As workers, they have suffered from sexual discrimination. Politically they are poorly represented and culturally, they are increasingly under pressure from the Moslem religion to cover up and stay home. The phrase "keep them barefoot and pregnant" has never been so true in this part of the world.
On a greater scale, these documentary shows how the government macro level economy policy never sided with the poor of the society. How these people have to carry the burden of high cost economy and unwise political decision drawn by ignorant and corrupt governance.On a smaller scale, this is a story of Indonesian women who were left to their own device after their life was upturned by the absence of the male of the species. This is their stories, their voices and their struggle to get by in life facing one hundred battles a day. The title, Storm in My Bowl, was meant to be an ironic remarks that no matter how bleak our life is and how hard the ship of problems rocks our world, unfortunately, life does go on. There's no other choice but to keep on living.
----
This photo documentary project was started as a personal account to follow the day to day life of my old friend, Diah Pitaloka, who -- since early 2001 -- has been working on this grass root program to help widowers to empower themselves in the absence of the man in the house; be it by cause of nature or by divorce. I wanted to capture to what extend does her work changed her life and the people around her. I tried to get the juxtaposition of her life before and after, how she adapt to her new life with bare necessities and strip down to mere essential. Having been a witness of her previous life before she started to work on this program; including the personal battle within herself before taking up the challenge to the early stage of the work until today when the program has been running for almost six years. I have seen how her efforts started to bring some changes to the life of the women she has been helping all these years. Hence I decided to delve further by going up close and personal with these incredibly strong women who manage to survive against all odds.
Of course, there were heaps of heartbreaking stories that I encountered during the course of this journey, but in this first part, I chose to tell only four stories that, in my humble opinion, would be able to carry across the gravity of the situation that these women are facing without trying to be melancholic nor romanticizing agony.
The place is Desa Tanjungsiang, lies in the northern part of West Java province Indonesia. In this village, the ratio of widowers reach such staggering scale that left many live below poverty lines as many micro level policy only cater to man-headed households. Hence, a women-headed households were left to tend for themselves as their status as widower push them farther aside in this patriarchic society.--- and these are their stories...
The Palm-Fiber workers
Ijuk or otherwise known as palm-fibre is still commonly used as the main material to make various traditional household items in Indonesia, such as floor sweeper, door mat, tow ropes, and many others. A tediously long hours works, these women usually started to work from 6am until 1pm everyday only to be paid around IDR10,000 or less than 1 USD, an amount that barely able to make ends meet. Some of them are already in their 60s and still have to work to feed the family. Yet, amidst all the bleakness in their life, they still able to laugh and help each other.
---
Ma' Odah
Her name is Odah, and that's all. An incredibly good hearted woman in her 50s, Ma' Odah's life is a series of misfortunes. Her first marriage left her with no kid as her husband died young. From her second marriage she had eight children but only four managed to survived as the
rest were died of various causes; one died when the baby was mere 20 days old, another died of diarrhea when he was 1 year old, the third one died of spasmodic fever when she was 3 years old and the last one died due to miscarriage. Ma' Odah youngest daughter suffer from mental illness that happened when she was 10 years old, with no apparent cause. The occasional outburst of her youngest daughter constantly put Ma' Odah in misery as she sometimes left with broken pieces of households items. Based on the government economy standard, she led a life below poverty lines, stuck on her window panel is a sticker called MISKIN (poor) to indicate that she deserved to received some help from the government Anti Poverty program. So far, nothing has changed much.---
Farmers for hire
Farmers for hire or commonly known as 'Buruh Tani' in Indonesian, are those who works on someone else's land to earn a living as they themselves have no land of their own. Their wages sometimes paid on daily basis or shared-benefit during harvesting seasons. In the past 3 years, farmers in this village were facing bad if not failed harvest that left many indebted to local debtor or pawnbroker to buy rice. A state initiated program called "Rice for The Poor" is intended to help many poor people to buy rice at subsidize price, but even so it's still unaffordable to many.
---
Diah PitalokaThis is a story of a 27 years old woman who stubbornly believe that this country is not a lost cause all together. That these marginalized women deserved to be helped and that she could make a change in their life. To make their life less miserable. And so far, there has been series of ups and down although in general, the intangible results were far more important to be noted. Graduated from Journalism department from Padjadjaran University, her life was turned to a dramatic change when she decided to take a job offered to run a Women Empowerment program (supported by the World Bank) in various troubled areas in Indonesia. As luck would have it, she was in charge to handle West Java, an area laden with high-numbers of widowers. Five years is a long time in people's life, and a lot could happen. And hers was no exception. What started as honest curiosity and intention to help fellow women, this work has now become her life. No sane person would willingly leave all the comfort in her previous life to focus her energy and live in secluded village tucked high in the mountains. With only occasional visit to Bandung, the nearest city, her life is otherwise full with motorcycling across the village region. From arranging a consolidation meeting on weekly basis, monitoring the progress of each group of women from myriad areas to listening to their day to day problems. I have seen how my friend's fierce belief on mankind and sheer stubbornness on helping these women has been able to help these unfortunate women to get back on their feet again and continue living. For her, this is a labour of love...
---
_This is a work in progress...
_Tentatively scheduled for exhibition in The Netherlands, dates to be confirmed.
DIAL 1-800-BURMA
Published by unfinishedandroid.
A glimpse into a country put on hold--An on-going photo documentary project about people and life in Myanmar, or formerly known as Burma, started in early May 2005. This is merely a personal record on what become of Burma after nearly a decade of rule under the military junta.
A brief history of Burma...
Burma was colonized by the British in 1886 and became independent in 1948. There was a brief period of parliamentary democracy when U Nu served as Prime Minister, until he was deposed in a military coup by General Ne Win in 1962. Since the coup, Burma has been a repressed country cut off from the rest of the world.
Ne Win began a policy of extreme isolationism, non-alignment and neutrality. He rejected investments by Western and other foreign governments, nationalized industry, banks, the import/export trade, and retail business. To retain power through such tragic failure he used the skills he had as a general: fear, disappearances, murders, arrests, and torture. During his brutal military reign the economy collapsed. Burma went from being the "rice bowl of Asia" to the distinction of United Nations Least Developed Country in 1987. It is now on par with Ethiopia and Chad.
Home to diverse ethnic groups with substantial numbers of kin beyond its borders, it's impossible to get an accurate count of their populations since most of them are hill tribes living in the jungles and mountains. Some of the larger minorities have assembled to fight against the military for independence. Some of them are the Shan, the Karen, the Kachin, the Mon, The Akha, the Pulau, the Arakan, and the Rohingya. Including, you know, those women with the long strectded necks with rings around them? Them too.Each has their own language, clothing, culture, food, etc. By the junta's own count they are currently fighting a dozen separate revolutions, something that a respectable government should not brag about. And by the way, Burma also remain as the world's second largest producer of opium, not that this fact would make any different to the lives of the ordinary, mind you.
---
My journey to Burma, early this year, was by no account laden with any specific agenda, let alone a political one. It was merely my curiosity, curse them, that led me to this part of the world. In more ways than one, Burmese's current state of life has many similiarities to other countries in Asia such as Indonesia, Laos and China. Although when one talks about China, one cannot singled out the kind of living standard that Chinese has in cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou or many other big cities, as those are not the general standard of living that the majority of Chinese have).
Life for majority of Burmese does go on despite all the political turmoil that rocked the country for nearly a decade. The country's economic stall in a way make it a perfect gateway for those who wish to remain anonymous and can do with bare necessities. Imagine living in a world with no McDonalds, no Nike ads, no ATM nor credit cards, internet is few and far between and mobile phone? Well, don't hold your breath for reliable mobile network. This could be heaven or hell depending on how you look at it. For a gadget junkie like myself, it was like purgatory. Although my short stay in Burma did teach me to simply leave everything behind and just put eveything on hold, hoping to never go back to where I came from. Alas, I have neither the luxury of time nor place because at some point I had to leave Burma.
_For more photos, please visit my official website at http://www.unfinishedandroid.com and simply go to photography section._Any comments or anything, just shoot me email.
hello world...
Published Friday, April 07, 2006 by unfinishedandroid.
Doing something merely because everyone else is doing it has never been my forte, if anything, I either tad too early or too late. Just like having a blog. Honestly, who has time? Definitely not me. But then, a friend of mine convinced me that perhaps there are some people out there who would think that I might put something interesting for them to read. **fingers crossed**
At least from human interest point of view, I promise that I would not write something trashy like what I think about which celebrity is dating who -- err, not that I know much about this sort of stuff anyway --, so most likely this blog will talk about my current or ongoing work that relates to people, life, the empowerment of civil society and those who are marginalized by global economy policies. All this are set in various places but mostly take place in developed countries in Asia.
Most of the time, I will be using the medium of photography to express my thoughts.
Thank you.
unfinishedandroid.
At least from human interest point of view, I promise that I would not write something trashy like what I think about which celebrity is dating who -- err, not that I know much about this sort of stuff anyway --, so most likely this blog will talk about my current or ongoing work that relates to people, life, the empowerment of civil society and those who are marginalized by global economy policies. All this are set in various places but mostly take place in developed countries in Asia.
Most of the time, I will be using the medium of photography to express my thoughts.
Thank you.
unfinishedandroid.
hello..
- i'm unfinishedandroid
- based in Shanghai, China
- just a regular folk who would believe only in a god who knows how to dance.
- more