The Bagangs fishing huts of southwestern Java in Indonesia have intrigued me greatly since my first viewing ten years ago. They have changed greatly with time and modernized rapidly. Ten years ago the fisherman used gas lamps to work on them all night attracting fish to the surface. Now they are built with generators and very bright lights and truly impressive fishing net systems.
Different varieties of bagangs are built all along the southern coast of Java but these floating huts in the area just east of the Tamanjaya peninsula are almost entirely maid of bamboo. Entire communities depend on the income they generate to exist. Villages such as Muara Binuangeun build the bagans, maintain them, send their men out nightly to work on them and have a whole fishing and boat community developed around them. I spent a few weeks in this village getting to know some of the boat captains and many of the men that owned and worked on the bagangs.
Theirs is a dying way of life as much more advanced fishing industries move into their waters from Japan and other nearby countries. Larger commercial fisherman from Jakarta are starting to ply their waters as well. I want to create an intimate portrait of these lives and their communities.
