Jembatan Tiga slum in Jakarta is named after the Trans Jakarta bus stop it lies adjacent to. I discovered the slum while traveling via bus to Jakarta from Soekarno-Hatta airport. We drove along a fairly new and impressive highway overpass which is part of the Jalan Tol Professor Sedyatmo tollway. I was taken aback by what appeared to be a fairly impromptu gathering of shacks under the overpass and along the river below. I decided to make a point of visiting the slum after I completed some work in southwestern Java.
After returning to Jakarta I had the opportunity to photograph Jembatan Tiga. I was immediately amazed at the level of organization its habitants had facilitated. Clean water was brought in via carts, filled with up to ten five-gallon jugs. Pool tables and video games and so much more had been installed and the people were amazing.
I want to return to Jembatan Tiga to better document the daily lives of these virulent people and the struggles they have maintaining healthy lives and conditions such difficult circumstances. I also want to bring a totally different form of photography to them; I am planning on bringing my studio style self-portrait photo booth set-up with me. This will allow the inhabitants to be emphatically more candid with the camera and facilitate me creating more images that I can give to them for their ownership and memories.
