Stories From The Shores

In this project, I collaborated with Davy Pieters to respond to issues unfolding along the northern coast of Java, particularly in North Jakarta. As the city continues to experience severe land subsidence alongside rising sea levels, the coastal landscape has been gradually reshaped, influencing infrastructure, everyday life, and the ways communities adapt to their changing environment.

Using the CDST (Community Digital Storytelling) method as a participatory approach, we worked together with children from the Kelas Jurnalis Cilik community. Through this process, the children were not positioned merely as subjects of documentation, but as active participants who could voice their own opinions, experiences, and perspectives as a generation growing up on the northern coast of Jakarta.

The project was divided into two thematic groups. The first group responded to the issue of limited play spaces amid dense coastal infrastructure and recurring tidal floods, while the second focused on waste and pollution as part of daily life in the coastal area. Through observation, discussion, and visual storytelling practices, the children were encouraged to document and reflect on the realities surrounding them.