ABSTRACT
As an artist my own practice is concerned with ideas of place. I consider how assumptions of landscape and identity can be addressed and questioned in film and photography and how they can be represented and investigated through visual exploration and documentation. This has led to a body of filmic, installation and photographic work focusing on natural and man-made disasters in the Indonesian archipelago. In this chapter I examine issues that arise when the landscape and environment are considered through creative media fields and academic research. I pose questions about how space is constructed and changed, how cultural relationships can be informed by such work and how the invisible can be made visible. The area of focus is the garbagescape; 1 how it is used as a resource and its relationship to urban poverty in Jakarta. My main case study is the landfill site of Bantar Gebang on the outskirts of Jakarta, the attendant trash-picking communities and the illegal settlement of Senen where many of these workers live. The chapter then moves from this man-made disasterscape to consider the landscapes created by natural disasters such as the Merapi and Krakatau volcanic eruptions in Indonesia and to examine how economic considerations and tourism coexist with concepts of the contemporary sublime and apocalypse.
