Adi Purnomo (a.k.a. Mamo), an architect who authored “Relativitas” and won numerous awards to say the least, asked me to collaborate with him to work on Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition 2006. Below is my only contribution to the so-called collaboration, some parts were inspired by our discussions, while others are direct translations of Mamo’s writings. Image is courtesy of Mamo.
Scorching heat on undulating asphalts
Dirt and rocks, unfriendly concrete pavements
Passing cars and motorcycles: Be careful, these roads are not yours!
I am here!
Walking
Scanning every meters of the streets
Trying to find scraps of materials I can reuse
Shade: Cover my restless, dehydrated body from the tropical sun
Let me sit on your threshold
Let me lie under your canopy
Let me watch the world go by
Thinking: How could I feed myself today?
Water: Drench the crevices of my organs
Clear my spirit before my feet lead me on to other urban nooks and expanses
But spare me from your overflowing angst
I am a residue of a sprawling, rhizomatic Jakarta
I roam its spaces with my senses
I stop or turn, work or rest, sit or sleep, walk or run, whenever my feet tells me to
Whenever I am conditioned to
Whenever these spaces invite me to
The street lamps. Starless, smoggy night
Immortal fireflies composing a skyline
I am finally at peace with this metropolis
I roam its streets as free as a bird, soaring towards heaven
I am uprooted, but I am one with Jakarta
The universe is in my palm
My house is everywhere
My home is in my heart
Plan-less, as is my life
4 comments:
What I have in mind when I heard term 'planless' is the freedom of will. It recalled me to decerteau's categorization of how people react in an urban place/space.
Strategy is a deliberate action of a certain people/person/instituton/etc to inject their ideas or their believed in form of system or design. Tactic is a reaction (although it doesn't mean it is accindental) of people to their surrounding.
The different between those two are in how the reaction emerges. The first one comes up with a plan. in this plan, they tried to foresee, to predict and eventualy to control human mind (excluding themselves though).
Tactic is planless. It is a series of acton which come-up in order to react or to respon to what happen in front of them. They don't try to foresee, to predict, or even to control other people mind/behaviour. The goal of a Tactic is how to make benefit of the presence (space/place)
I’m not sure if in Indonesia’s case the category of strategy and tactic can be so nicely differentiated. There are cases where strategies (deliberate action of a certain people/ person/ institution) are actually plan-less reactions that meant to control, but have failed to do so such as in the case of how regulations of shortcut are made :) Often it’s difficult to pin point which one is action and which one is reaction, nor who is doing the control (or perhaps neither?).
really nice writing...
and really inspiring...
Now I can get all the mean in that board...
nice work...
*when i can make something like that?? still wondering and still trying ^^;*
sincerely yours..
Thanks Anonymous!
There's a saying: "I can, because I believe I can". It's only a matter of time if you are persistent with your passion :)
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