FRAMING LOCAL CULTURE IN AN INTERNATIONAL PHOTO FESTIVAL

Documenting all the local wisdom and culture that is still inherent in an area is an inspiration for Fajri Azhari, a student of the 2019 Photography Department, Faculty of Recording Media Arts (FSMR), Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) Yogyakarta and Aji Susanto Anom, M. Sn. lecturer at the FSMR Photography Department to capture it in a photo work. Their works were selected to be exhibited in a photo festival organized by Panna Foto Institut on the occasion of The Exhibition Vision 20/20: Community (Contemporary Indonesian Engaged Photography).

The theme carried by Fajri Azhari is a response to the condition of the phenomenon of gadgets and social media that has now become a primary need for Indonesian people. With the work titled "NOMOPHOBIA", Fajri depicts a reality that also represents the fact about the impact of dependence on gadgets and social media. With a conceptual photo approach, he works in an alternative way to illustrate what he sees from the dependence on gadgets and social media. The choice of black and white photos with high contrast in the photos is a way for him to convey a dramatic, gripping impression, and implies an impression of discomfort from the impact of device dependence.

According to Fajri as an exhibitionist "VISION-20/20", it is an extraordinary achievement. Exhibiting with senior photographers on an international scale is one of the big dreams of today's young photographers. Through the exhibition, young photographers learn from senior photographers about the impact of photographic media on the surrounding environment as well as a more global environment because it turns out that photography encourages every human being to study other sciences, such as Anthropology, Psychology, History, and Philosophy.

The concept conceived by Aji Susanto Anom expresses his love for photography in simple terms: "Photography is the poison of the world that haunts my life." So far, through his documentary projects, he has come into contact with Indonesian culture from an intangible and intertwined side (intangible). His project titled "River of Hades" led her to become one of the finalists"Burn Magazine Emerging Photographer Fund 2016."

 Through his documentary work, Aji Susanto Anom has to deal with mystical experiences that are personal, but at the same time are also mystical in nature. transcendental (unseen/incomprehensible) until it seems almost beyond words. Things that can be felt with the five senses are visualized in the work "The Lengger Lanang Dancer" (Male Lengger Dancer), which explores the depth of Javanese traditions, which cannot be separated from human rituals or customs with ancestors. Her photographs tell a story "about a body within a body (e.g. a woman within a man's body)".

The curator presents Aji Susanto Anom's work with a slideshow (slide showThis is because it is based on the performative nature of the Lengger Lanang dance that provides a display of tradition that is generally performative in nature, which until now the performance is still in demand by the public. Aji Susanto Anom's work is a differentiator from the other works because at the time of the screening most contestants displayed the culture of today which is social issues of society but Aji Susanto Anom displayed one of the popular mystical traditions in Java which symbolically intersects with local cultural heritage.

The virtual exhibition, which was held from March 17 - October 4, 2020, can be viewed at channel Youtube Panna Foto Institute. Exhibition VISION 20/20 is a collaborative project between Jakopič Gallery (Ljubljana, Slovenia), PannaFoto Institute (Jakarta, Indonesia), and Living Atelier DK (Zagreb, Croatia). The virtual exhibition was exhibited simultaneously so that other countries could also see the richness of Indonesian culture through the variety of photos presented. The photographs exhibited by Aji and Fajri are not coincidental because the two issues are daily problems of Indonesian society where gender in art is still a phenomenal issue for some people, so it is often considered to clash with religious values. Meanwhile, Fajri's work is a representation of the dependence of regional communities on smart devices that is not limited to urban communities. Both exhibitors, with their respective perspectives, try to show the world about the culture and dynamism of their society in responding to the problems of culture and technology that will always coexist closely.