Synopsis

Jakarta remains one of the least understood cities in Asia. It’s a teeming metropolis of twelve million people – the largest city in Southeast Asia. A mishmash of crowded slums and gleaming skyscrapers, shrouded in a cloud of smog, crisscrossed by clogged canals and choked by endless gridlock. It’s not what you would call a beautiful place. In fact, Jakarta seems to sum up everything that could go awry in a city.

It’s easy to feel that this is all there is to Jakarta – a chaotic, unbearable urban mess. But therein lies the peculiar paradox of the city. With the adversity that urban life presents, comes resilience. Within the disorder, there are opportunities. In Jakarta, these manifest themselves in ordinary, unusual and often colourful ways in everyday life. I wanted to explore this side of the city.

For the past year, I’ve been travelling there to make an ongoing under-the-skin portrait of the city. I’ve been roaming the streets, searching for the in-between spaces and random encounters, from the ordinary and humorous, to the idiosyncratic. I’m slowly beginning to understand how this enormous city ticks, the ways of its inhabitants, and how it somehow plugs along and keeps its allure for me and so many millions of other people.

Photographer: Min-Wei Ting
Camera: Contax T3
Website: www.mwting.com

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