German and Dutch artists will stay for three weeks in two Kampungs of North Jakarta (Kampung Penjaringan and Kampung Tongkol), where they will develop artistic projects and art works together with residents. The desires and needs of the residents will be the decisive motor. The slum is not to be perceived as simply exotic, picturesque scenery or as the recipient of foreign development aid but rather as a living space for everyday life that has grown in the context of economic and social developments and as a place with specific challenges and opportunities. It calls for life skills, creativity and respect.
The art project is to take place within the district and will either result in a material inventory or leave immaterial new ideas with an accompanying form of tradition. It is not about a scheduled art exhibition that attracts attention for only a short time.
The artists will work together with the residents, who will be involved in the preliminary research towards concept development and at all stages of realisation. Their complex life circumstances are the starting point of the project. The resulting work will have a sustainable character.
The lack of infrastructure for leisure activities as an urban problem will be taken up thematically and processed in artistic processes: fun and humour as a positive and creative engine.
Through the mechanism of common recreational activity with the residents, it is the task of the artists to dissolve the idea of classifications of first world and third world/emerging countries with artistic interventions and to set aside the idea of giving and receiving.
It is expected that the work and operational style of both cultures will show major cultural differences during the implementation and realisation of the art concepts and that this will be beneficial to all parties.
Furthermore, a minimum qualitative appreciation of the district through both the tangible and intangible legacy of art works, artistic projects and new recreational facilities may be the positive effect!
The artists and initiators of Trotoart, who live in this slum and who have already realised many social projects to improve living conditions, have invited the artists to stay and work in the area. This art group, which is a respected player in the area, will provide a link with the locality. They have a great interest in exchanging experiences related to artistic approaches and social processes with foreign artists and in talking and acting together.
The Rujak Center for Urban Studies is partner of the project. The Rujak Center for Urban Studies has set itself the task of building sustainable change in Jakarta. The Rujak Center works intensively with the urban planning problems of the many slums of Jakarta and maintains close contacts with residents.
Residents of Kampung Tongkol, located between the Ciliwung River tributary and the Dutch colonial wall in Ancol, North Jakarta, have proposed to the Jakarta Government to guard the heritage of the area and the river as part of its community development plans. As the residents are concerned that Kampung Tongkol, as a settlement on the bank of the Ciliwung river, will becomes a target of the city administration’s eviction plans, they chose to renovate their own houses in hope that the area may be looked on as a pilot project for environmental river bank housing. To gather sufficient funds for the project, residents grouped together to combine their savings.
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