Photo show puts in focus blue and gray of urban skies

JAKARTA (JP): A traditional superheroine in Javanese attire flies through a colorful and harried Jakarta, complete with ash- gray buildings and neon signs.

In red, the caption on the poster reads: There is no need for a super hero to save our Jakarta skies. We all can do it.

This is one of 67 photographs and posters on display at the Pasar Seni Gallery in Taman Impian Jaya Ancol, North Jakarta, until Aug. 30.

With figures showing 70 percent of city air pollution caused by vehicle emissions, and the city billed as the third-most polluted city in the world, the exhibition has photos that seem a complementing illustration of the city's air today.

However, others tell of bluer skies.

The exhibition, with two themes: Blue Is My Jakarta Sky and Gray is My Jakarta Sky, is a collaboration of local magazine Fotomedia and the Segar Jakarta clean air project.

Photographs were selected from a photography contest held here four months ago organized by Swisscontact -- which runs Segar Jakarta -- and its local partner, PT Qipra Galang Kartika.

Winning photographs include M. Iqbal's Kota Dalam Bingkai (City In A Frame), Setiana Tirta's Menuju Langit Biru (Heading Toward A Blue Sky), and Atok Sugiarto's Terganggu Nafasku (Choked).

From an under-a-bridge angle, the former portrays black, dilapidated huts, a dead tree and a fairly compact slum area against a blue sky. The latter is an extraordinary shot of a man walking along a very narrow, long wooden board toward a ship. The shot was cleverly taken to portray the vastness of the sky.

Other works range from people-oriented to environment-oriented ones. Hendro Setiako's Bersih, Indah Dan Berwibawa (Clean, Beautiful and Wise) has Monas, the national monument in Central Jakarta, against a glossy-blue night as a backdrop and food sellers in the vicinity.

One titled Ngeri! (Scary) by Haryono, portrays a factory chimney spouting poisonous gases and a blackened, leafless tree with spiny branches overshadowing it.

Interesting ones falling under the Blue Is My Jakarta Sky theme are Daniel Supriyono's Mencari Bintang (Looking for Stars) and Ramdan's Stasiun Jakarta Kota (Jakarta's Downtown Station).

Clear blue skies and waters attract the viewers as much as the three children in Daniel's photograph. While one looks straight at you with smiling eyes, the other two are busy handling starfish. Daniel won third place for his entry, Loncatan Dalam Biru (A Jump Into Blue).

Ramdan cleverly portrays a solitary vendor resting on a red bench with his colorful plastic bags for sale on the ground, among busy streets, cars lining up across the Kota railway station in North Jakarta and blue skies.

Strong posters include that of an ID card portraying a man in a gas mask, captioned Must We Live Like This?.

One portrays a cartoon of an infant wearing a gas mask, while another has the figures of nationalistic monuments, including Patung Petani and Patung Senayan, in gas masks.

The idea of clean air, however, could not have been put more aptly than with the statements on a poster that told of the possible meanings of blue skies.

An excerpt: "Maybe it means our descendants will not suffer from low IQs, maybe it means Jakarta might be upgraded to the fourth-most polluted country in the world, maybe it means that Jakartans have become less apathetic..." (ylt)