Landing Soon
Artist in Residence, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. August, September, October 2007

While still full of anticipation of working in Yogyakarta during three consecutive months, I tried to prepare myself. I Googled Java, I consulted the Great Bos Atlas of the World to explore the Indonesian archipelago, I turned to the magnificent documentary photo books by Cas Oorthuys. Black-and-white photographs of Indonesia after the country became independent, volcanoes blowing plumes of smoke, sawahs, fish hatcheries. Even in the Bos Atlas Indonesia is far, far away, smack on the other side of the globe. Its maps I finally found on the last pages.

In the photos I shot earlier in 2007, in Death Valley on the California/Nevada border and in New Mexico’s high desert, no interference by man can be detected. These landscapes were formed by nature itself. Observing these landscapes, one steps back in time and sees rocks created by millions and millions of years of geological development, and sand dunes only shaped by winds and water. Can one still speak of landscape? Only after photography has provided a framework, nature, so immeasurably vast, returns to being a landscape.

Yogyakarta is surrounded by landscapes abundant. The soil is fertile. All that man can touch is set up for agriculture. Sawahs, corn and tobacco in the lower elevations, manioc fields on dry hills, potato cultures up in the mountains. Everywhere, also in areas that appear remote and deserted, one meets farmers swaying their sickles or transporting a load of “green harvest” on their shoulders. Even when in my photographs no human being can be detected, one can see the imprint their bare feet make in all sawahs. Even if the landscape is cultivated, one can see how the water chooses a natural flow path, and the impact a natural elevation line has in a hill. The rich nature is adapted for agriculture with just minimal effort and minimal disturbance. Man remains the measure of all things.

Rotterdam, November 28, 2007 Gerco de Ruijter