Living at the Urban Seafront in Jakarta and Bremen
March – June 2025
This double-exhibition in Bremen and Jakarta is a project by Bremer Zentrum für Baukultur and Goethe Institut Indonesia happening from March to June 2025. It’s the second edition in a series of photography exhibitions by BZB on climate adaptation and public space, the first one happened in spring 2024 in Bremen only. For “Sea Level Cities”, GI Jakarta issued an open call and we assembled a jury of three Indonesian and three German jurors to select 15 out of over a hundred entries. The two partner organizations curate and arrange the final presentations individually to fit the local requirements and audiences. “Sea Level Cities” is also part of the official program of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) in Germany.
A project by Bremer Zentrum für Baukultur, Goethe-Institut Indonesia, Fotoetage Bremen and POLIS-SEA together with Universitas Indonesia, financed by Forschungscluster Region(en) im Wandel at Hochschule Bremen.
© Aan Melliana
Jakarta-based photographer Aan Melliana’s pictures were taken around Dadap Beach, one of the few publicly accessible beaches in Jakarta. This sea wall is one of the remaining structures of the gigantic NCICD development project, which was taken up more than ten years ago by the Indonesian government with advice from Dutch companies and that has since been revised and adapted several times. “The embankment that has been built does not solve the problems in the coastal area, but creates new problems related to the threat to the coastal environment, ecological carrying capacity and living space of coastal communities.” (Aan Melliana)
© Tristan Vankann
Gallery window of exhibition at
Bremer Zentrum für Baukultur
© Fernando Randy
Jakarta-born photographer Fernando Randy worked for a long time as a photojournalist and has published two illustrated books. In his pictures he focuses on the kampungs, informal settlements, some of which have existed for generations and are home to thousands of working people, but are nevertheless repeatedly displaced by government infrastructure projects or real estate investment such as this shopping mall, which was built on a former kampung site. The residents of Kampung Muara Angke in the north of the city, on the other hand, are repeatedly exposed to massive flooding.