Outdonesia

Outdonesia explores memory, belonging, and growing up between social worlds in Indonesia, tracing how relationships with people and places change over time, distance, and the passage of memory.

Growing up between Bandung and Jakarta, I was educated in international and private-school environments shaped by Indonesian and expatriate communities, Christian education, Western media, and local social expectations. I often felt caught between these different worlds, struggling to understand how to communicate myself within them.

After high school, this distance became more apparent. Many of the people I had grown up with eventually left Indonesia to study abroad, while I remained. Social media and my phone became ways of maintaining connections with people and a world that was becoming increasingly distant.

Outdonesia is an ongoing photographic investigation into memory, belonging, and the experience of growing up between social worlds. The project began with photographs, objects, school environments, digital images, conversations, and memories that remained with me, alongside things that have been lost or become difficult to remember. Through these fragments, I look back at the people and places that shaped my experience of growing up in Jakarta, and at how my relationships with them have changed over time and distance.