How do young Indonesians view themselves? What do they value, and how do they envision their future?
Indonesia is constantly evolving. In this project (work in progress), I'm researching how young people develop and engage with the world. Over several years, I'll follow Tiysa, Yogi, Eru, Adin, and Nessa, interviewing them about their ambitions, inspiration, and challenges.
My starting point and guiding principle are the ideas of Sutan Sjahrir (1909-1966), one of the most important freedom fighters and the first prime minister of the republic. A man who prioritised youth. Freedom, education, justice, dialogue, and personal growth—these are themes that keep recurring in his thinking.
While making "I Love Banda," I encountered Sutan Sjahrir's legacy. He's a hero on Banda. Why is this? Young people wear t-shirts with his image, many of his photos on the walls of the Hatta-Sjahrir College, and at the Sjahrir Museum, I met schoolchildren from Ambon. While the Sjahrir school bell chimes in the background on Sjahrir Island, I interviewed several young people from the Perbamu group, a socially engaged organisation inspired by Sjahrir's thinking. But also online, I found all sorts of merchandise and artworks featuring images and quotes from Sjahrir.
To get a sense of what's in the minds of young Indonesians, I organised workshops in places where Sjahrir formed his ideas. I invited the students to reflect on themes such as freedom, creativity, and personal development. Upik Sjahrir, Sutan Sjahrir's daughter, also joined in. She shared her memories, spoke about her father's view of the world, and engaged in conversation with the students.
Together with young artists, I created a participatory project in Jakarta, where everything revolved around encouraging individual talents and collaboration. The art director was Sjahrir's granddaughter, who encouraged everyone to reach their full potential. In three weeks, we created a pop-up exhibition from scratch, featuring video, graffiti, photography, poetry, and painting. Besides everyone creating their own work, we also handled the organisation together, from concept and design to promotion and the opening event.
Together with anthropologist Fridus Steijlen (KITLV), I created a four-part podcast series by the name "Sjahrir is here." Experts, interested parties and Sjahrir's family share their knowledge, inspiration, memories, and unique backgrounds to his life. And by doing so, we explore to what extent and in what way his ideas still hold meaning. In the final episode, I take the listener on a journey to Indonesia, visiting the places where Sjahrir grew up, lived, and worked. I also talk about the workshops, the pop-up exhibition, and the photo series I'm currently creating.
You can find the podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Graphic designer and photographer Adam Prayogi created the artwork.
Fridus and I invited to talk about the podcast on radio Oras. Radio hosts Jane and Renate were so enthusiastic the first time that they invited us to come back to talk more about the subject. You can listen to the interview here .
The project is made possible by various enthusiastic experts, particularly Fridus Steijlen & Upik Sjahrir, active members of educational institutions, and with the support of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), the Marinus Plantema Foundation, the Zaaier Foundation, and Ben & Riny Keijser. And countless kind and dedicated people, including Valentijn Webbers, who are giving the project extra wings.