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Director’s Note When Peter Bialobrzeski travelled through South East Asia during a free semester at the University of the Arts Bremen in winter 2007/08 he combined his own photographic investigations with workshops for young talents in the six foremost cities of the region: Jakarta, Hanoi, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Singapore. What Peter was expecting to find – a specific Southeast Asian way of seeing, a unique artistic view of the local urban reality – proved to be a European projection. It quickly gave way to the recognition that – as everywhere else in the world – good photography demands a strenuous, persistent and unbiased effort to break through the conventional clichés and restrictions of popular trends in photography, as well as, in this case, to break through the veneer of familiarity with the local urban setting. Only in this way can these “Invisible Cities” be made visible, their existence becoming apparent only after very precise scrutiny and intensive observation. Following the success of the photography project “artconnexions”, Mapping Invisible Cities is the second attempt to bring together young photographers from the region and to promote a common exploration of the urban subject. This is in line with the intentions of the Goethe Institute in South East Asia, not only to encourage an exchange with Europe, but also to utilize the network of our centers to promote creative interaction among the young artists of the region. I would like to thank all workshop participants for their contributions, Peter Bialobrzeski for his months of commitment to the project, and finally Alex Supartono and his team for curating the exhibition. Special thanks to Marla Stukenberg who, before her transfer from Jakarta to Mumbai, initiated this project and actively saw it on its way. The extensive project was made possible by an unusually large special grant from the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, for which we would like to express our gratitude! |
Franz Xaver Augustin Regional Director South East Asia/Australie/New Zealand Jakarta, May 2008 |
