A Young Photographer with International Achievements

INDONESIAN PHOTOGRAPHER, 10th edition, April 2009
(English Translation)

Time continues to renew itself. That is how the law of nature works the young replaces the older ones, the living succeeded the dying. 

So no wonder the regenerative principle also applied to the world of photography. Currently the young talents of photographers continue to grow and are preparing to succeed their senior's place. The concrete example could be found in Ali Akbar's persona. He represents the successive regeneration principle. They are the representations of the creative and first-rate young photographers who are ready to step ahead. 

At firs photography was not really the activity, which connects Ali Akbar with advertising industry. "Before I was an art director and have worked in the advertising circle for 6 years," he stated. During his tenure as art director, Ali has received various awards ranging from Citra Pariwara, Adoi Advertising Awards and London International Advertising Awards. The long years of art directing have brought Ali to a deep longing for different atmosphere. Thus in the year 2005 Ali decide to quit his job and moved to Singapore to work as a photographer and creative freelancer. After one year adventuring abroad, Ali came up with the decision to return to Indonesia and founded his own studio, "Between the year of 2007 and 2008 I set up Ali Akbar studio and focused myself in making commercial photography" said Ali.

His focus on commercial photography is motivated by his background experience, "Since the start, I have fallen for advertising, the knowledge and experience in commercial industry that I have makes it even more a realistic choice for me," Ali explained. Nonetheless, Ali also admitted that the career shift from art director to photographer involves some new challenges. "Whereas in the past I was more in charge in the concept development, now I have to push this concept even further towards an executable level in terms of photography," he said. The challenges also grow as a commercial photographer must take in different elements to measure one's level of success. " We have to satisfy different interest, not only the client's but also our target audience's. If the ads does nor received expected responds, then our work is deemed as a failure" Ali explained.

Another thing that motivates Ali to focus on commercial projects is the network that he has maintained throughout his career. Thus he does not require a lengthy adaptation. "Because I already have enough links and long-time relations, I don't have any difficulties in looking for clients, I just have to run the maintenance," said the photographer whose work was awarded by Citra Pariwara. Much less with his experience abroad such as in Malaysia and Singapore, automatically some of his clients are not exclusively Indonesian.

Despite of his background in the ads agency, in fact Ali recently Honourable Mention from American Photo magazine for editorial category instead of printed ads photography. The work visualized graphic designers duo, Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina with objects that inspired them. "So the approach is closer to portrait," Ali said shortly. In respond to the award give away, Ali saw it as a benchmark. "This way we can measure our own position. The interesting thing is to learn how others judge our personal style" said the photographer whose work was displayed at the National Gallery and in a billboard located at Pondok Indah area, during Jakarta Biennale XIII.

Fail Harder

Billboard Art Adds Reflection to the City's Celestial Clutter

THE JAKARTA POST, 9 February 2009

Taking advantage of a rare opportunity, artists are transforming Jakarta billboards from their traditional function as commercial advertisements to art that provokes viewers to think twice about their surroundings.

Instead of being bombarded by messages pushing them to spend money, people passing the now-historic first modern mall in Indonesia -Sarinah Department Store on Jl. MH Thamrin, Central Jakarta - can see a billboard sporting an old photograph of a woman wearing the traditional kebaya and sarong and holding an umbrella. Artist Angki Purbandono used the anonymous portrait as an imagined image of former first president Sukarno's nanny, the inspiration behind the department store's name. Commuters stuck in traffic along often-gridlocked Jl. Sultan Iskandar Muda can consider the meaning of another portrait of an elusive woman. Yan Mursid's stereogram is erected on a billboard at the pedestrian bridge in front of the Pondok Indah mosque.

The billboard art is part of the ongoing art festival ARENA: Jakarta Biennale 2009, Billboard project curator Irwan Ahmett said the idea was to bring art to public spaces.

"This is something new and has never been done before."

"The billboard phenomenon in Jakarta has reached an extraordinary level, especially with the election campaigns. They're everywhere and placed with no regard for the city's aesthetics. It's cluttered," Irwan said.

Billboard advertising can be seen in every corner of the capital. With the coming election, political parties and candidates have splashed billboards, banners, and posters on every roadway.

"We're manipulating this phenomenon by using the same medium to showcase site-specific art," Irwan said.

One artist, Ali Akbar, chose to work up a parody of commercial billboards to mock Jakartans' consumerism. His billboard, also in front of the Pondok Indah Mosque, informs people of an 80 percent discount at the opening of a fake fashion house dubbed Fakery London.

Ali carries the con one step further, using a fake Facebook account for the label. "The funny thing is, people on Facebook have been all eager about finding out about this label," he said.

Ali, an award-winning photographer, said that he was taking a critical look at deep consumerism in Jakarta. At first he wanted to put the mock billboard up on Jl. Asia Afrika, Senayan, South Jakarta, where the two malls Plaza Senayan and Senayan City face each other.

"We weren't able to secure a permit there," he said.

Four billboards went up Monday. Irwan said Cecil Mariani's billboard about the history behind Menteng Park was scheduled to go up soon in Menteng, Central Jakarta. Eric Wijaya's billboard will be up in mid February, replacing Angki's. Ritchie Ned Hansel's likewise goes up at the same time in Pondok Indah.

Some artists participating in the project said their inspiration came from the exact location where they knew their art would be displayed.

Angki, originally from Yogyakarta and residing there now, said the Sarinah locale pretty much summed up the Jakarta experience. He worked in the Sarinah building for two years for MTV Trax magazine. "It's like, after visiting Sarinah, you don't have to go anywhere else in Jakarta."

"You can find everything there: sidewalk vendors, department stores, restaurants and nightclubs," he said.

Angki has been collecting old photographs since 2006. The photograph he used is part of that collection. "I imagined Sarinah would have been a refined and elegant woman," he said.

Another artist, Ismiaji Cahyono, placed his billboard in Grogol, East Jakarta. Despite the hectic cluttered there, Aji said he liked the site for its strategic location.

Using his billboard he invited people to express their feelings about Grogol through sending a text message over their mobile phones.

His billboard has "Grogol: .." in big letters.

By Tuesday Aji had already received 24 messages. He said most replies contained the same word: cluttered.

~ Prodita Sabarini

Arts for Laypersons

TEMPO 52/XXXVII, 16 February 2009
(English Translation)

That noon, the sun simmered Jakarta. But Wawang remained animated in offering his services to the visitors of Monas. He is one of dozens of mobile photographers around Monas. Wawan's spirit was boosted due to an exhibition holding located at the tunnel nearby the ticket booth." Since the exhibition is held, our income rise to almost 20 percent higher", he said in excitement.

The photo exhibition Wawang was referring to displayed works of the young photographer Daniel Kampua. The exhibition entitled Monas dan Kita (literally Monas and Us) presented various unique poses of visitors as shot by the mobile photographers. These photo works can give the impression that the visitors are touching the monument's top. There is a photo depicting a boy reaching the gold surface at the top of Monas, to a photo portraying a guy in long hair that pretend to lit his cigarette from the flame-shape summit. Apparently these unique poses have driven other visitors to have similar shots taken.

But Wawang's joy is not only caused by the increasing demand. "What I like most is the text set next to the photo. For us, this text has given us the acknowledgement to mobile photographer profession," he proudly explained. Indeed, this exhibition was dedicated for them. Apart from presenting the unique poses, Daniel has succeeded in assembling all the photographers working in the area in a photo group session. A very rare moment to be found there, as in daily circumstances the relation between the mobile photographers at Monas is highly competitive.

Daniel's work is one of the site-specific work series presented as part of Jakarta Biennale XIII 2009 holding in January. Ardi Yunanto, the program's curator, stated that this time they invited artist to discuss about the diminishing public space in Jakarta. "We also asked them to create new spaces, both in its physical as well as conceptual sense," Ardi added.

Thus, arts will lo longer appears sterile within prestigious avenues. One artist, Veronica Kusuma, brought free film screening to an old cinema house in Senen. In the past Senen was a strategic area. It was also a popular hub for among local artists such as Wim Umboh and Misbach Jusa Biran. While the Senen cinema house heyday could be traced back to the 1970-1980 period, during the golden era of Indonesian cinema.

The cinema house then started to dwindle following the plunge experienced by Indonesian movie industry in the 1990's. With the current revival of the giant screen, the cinema house remains stranded into the past. "Many come here not only to watch the film, but also to hold sexual transaction," explained the student of Film studies at Jakarta Arts Institute.

To revive its function as an entertainment place, Vero and her colleagues organized two free film screenings last January: a comedy flick starred by Benyamin S. and a horror movie featuring the horror queen Suzanna. The audience responds were beyond expectation, from the 180 seats capacity available, 210 people came watching.

The shows were attended by people from different background, from street-hawkers, local thugs, to sex workers. "They were all excited about these events," Vero said gleefully. Although the space was without air-condition and the audience have to seat in chairs that resemble public transportation seating, their enthusiasm remains high. Despite of the breaking projection due to the reel's bad quality, the audience remain lingered in their seat until the show ended.

Public spaces were created throughout the Biennale. Saleh Husein, Yusmario Farabi, and Aprilia Apsari invented a new park, which is unlisted in the municipal office. The trio designed and "installed" a park underneath the flyover located nearby Tebet train station. The site was named Taman Catur, (literally, Chess Park) since people always play chess there everyday for the past five years. Owing to the local residence, the place that was originally dark and dangerous became a fun meeting point.

Saleh and his friends tried to emphasize the presence of the informal chess park. They learned that there were no bench or table upon which the residence can play chess with. After spending one month to brainstorm with the local citizens they came up with the idea to make seating arrangements for playing chess, accompanied by a mural depicting the chess pawns over the flyover walls.

The bench and tables were designed for 16 people with the chessboard painted on the table surface. Some spaces are provided in between the "boards" for the players to put their coffee-mugs on. The bench was made extra-long so the audience could sit while watching the game. But the most unique thing is the detachable table leg. "This was tailored based on the people's demand, so that when there is police raid, they can be moved," said Saleh in laughs.

Concerns over the increasing numbers of mall in Jakarta have sparked a creative inkling in Ali Akbar's mind. The former worker of advertising industry observes the excessive consumerism among Jakarta citizen. He then set up billboard advertising a fake sale under the brand Fakery. Not contented with the billboard perched on the bridge crossing nearby Pondok Indah Mosque, he also distributed the fake sale promotion in the social networking site, Facebook.

Within two weeks time, he collected more than 200 new friends due to the ads. Almost everyone positively welcome the fake brand launching. Some have asked the outlet location for this brand, while a public relation company proposed a partnership package. The initial plan was to set the billboard in front of the two prestigious shopping malls in Senayan area. Unfortunately, the complex bureaucracy of Jakarta governance hampered this attempt. "Actually I wanted to show people how they have been buying unnecessary things, based on fake reality," he explained.

The high crime rate in Jakarta has disturbed artists as well. Ami and The Popo are two young people who often pass through T.B. Simatupang street in South Jakarta area. They have witnessed a motorbike robbery during one night at the location. Hence they mulled over the possibilities of making a warning system.

At the three locations with highest risk, they put up a wetpaste poster depicting a motorbike rider being chased by a gun or a giant hand. Too bad, due to the sites' high exposure to water, their posters are already torn by now. The idea to provide a warning system is entitled Caterpaper. They often spotted a robber who intentionally scattered nails on certain streets in Jakarta to ensnare their victim. To warn the citizens about the criminal conduct Ami and the Popo disguised as a public work official installed some warning on the streets saying: Warning Nails.

In responding to the heavy traffic, Ismiaji Cahyono designed a giant yellow billboard at Grogol intersection. The wordings on the billboard say: Grogol is...? Pleas fill the blank and send your text message to 0899123456, which is his private phone number. He collected the meanings of Grogol for its citizens via the short message sent to his mobile phone.

So many problems are beleaguering this city that it took three weeks for artists to discuss the. Some of the results directly benefit the public.

~ Sita Planasari Aquadini

Melissa Auf Der Maur & Karen Elson - Devil's Plaything

Fakery London

Fakery London Billboard Exhibition

Jakarta Biennale XIII 2009