Documentary

The Cost of Indonesia Food Estate Program on The Washington Post, January 2024

Recent photo and video work for The Washington Post on The Cost of Indonesia Food Estate Program

Story Excerpt:
Indonesia has been clearing tens of thousands of acres of densely vegetated peatland for farming, releasing massive amounts of carbon that had been sequestered below for centuries and destroying one of the Earth’s most effective means of storing greenhouse gases.

The country is home to as much as half of the planet’s tropical peatland, a unique ecosystem that scientists say is vital to averting the worst results of climate change. Government leaders have made halting efforts to protect peatlands over the last two decades, but three years ago, when the pandemic disrupted food supply chains, officials launched an ambitious land-clearance operation in a push to expand the cultivation of crops and cut Indonesia’s reliance on expensive imports.

Read the story by Rebecca Tan with additional reporting by Dera Sijabat here

Dirty Coal Mining in Borneo for PublicEye Magazine, September 2023 Issue

Photo and aerial video work for PublicEye, a Switzerland-based journalism NGO which focuses on troubling practices by Swiss companies all over the world. On this piece, I traveled to Borneo to document coal mining owned by IMR and Mercuria. The resulting images are published on the September issue of the magazine (also on the cover).

Story excerpt:
Giving the mining sector carte blanche has enabled Indonesia to become a top coal exporter in the space of a decade. Public Eye travelled to the heart of the world’s second-largest tropical forest, to a village inhabited by the Dayak indigenous group. Since 2019, inhabitants have been struggling with a mine operated on behalf of a Swiss conglomerate. Land grabbing, contamination of air and water: coal is a partial and capricious king.

Written by Adria Budry Carbo

Read the story online here (best view on desktop)

Assignment via Panos Picture

President Joko Widodo in Monocle No. 156, September 2022

It’s been a while since I photographed for Monocle. Teaming up with James Chambers, I traveled to Labuan Bajo (the so-called new Bali) in order to join Indonesian President Joko Widodo on his offical trip last July. James would have an exclusive interview with the president, talking about his on-going second term and also his legacies once he stepped down from the office in two years time.

This was my forth time meeting and photographing the president. To my surprise, the protocols were much more strict than ever (because of the on-going pandemic and possibly for the recent happening with Shinzo Abe in Japan). Apart from the intimate time spent onboard the phinisi schooner, it was very difficult to get close to the president. Glad that the images somehow turned out quite well. Below are the publication in Monocle No.156, September 2022.

Writer: James Chambers
Photo Editor: Matthew Beaman

A Song from Another Land in Hong Kong International Photo Festival (HKIPF)

‘A Song from Another Land’, a film I co-directed and produced with Fatris MF as part of ‘The Banda Journal’ was screened in Photo Cinema program in Hong Kong International Photo Festival 2021. The special program is part of the main presentation ‘Jakarta International Photo Festival: Tracing Inherited History’.

In case you missed the opportunity to watch it on site (traveling during the pandemic is a pain in the a**), you can also watch the film below.

The Banda Journal Won the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook of the Year 2021

It’s so unexpected that The Banda Journal, the book from the project I produced collaboratively with the writer Fatris MF, and designed by Jordan Marzuki, won the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook of the Year Awards 2021. Earlier, we already so happy to know that we’re in the shortlist. But we never really thought that we would win. So it was a really nice surprise for the end of this turbulent year.

Read the news here.