The Jakarta Post

Happiness and Honesty, captured by 'A Child's Eye'

from THE JAKARTA POST -- MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2007 -- PAGE 19

Many might imagine that living in a panti asuhan (care home) is fraught with misery: No loving parents, sharing rooms and a lack of food form the general idea surrounding care homes, especially in developing countries like Indonesia.

But love need not always come from parents, and sharing rooms with friends and lacking the luxury of junk food might spell happiness. Care homes can also be "home sweet home" -- this is one of the messages that emerge from the 60 photographs currently being exhibited in the Hotel Gran Melia in Kuningan, South Jakarta, through June 22.

The photographs in A Child's Eye/Mata Anak exhibit reveals that happiness does not always come in physical, tangible form.

The eyes of the children photographed through the lens of their peers at several panti located in Banda Aceh, Pidie and Lhokseumawe reflect happiness.

Visitors can see the children's expressions while they are having dinner with their friends, or posing in front of their simple domiciles, or taking bath in a bore well, or even while collecting firewood.

In such snapshots, viewers might find it difficult to see traces of misery left behind as a result of the prolonged conflicts or the tsunami disaster in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province.

The cheerful faces of children going to school without shoes or of boys in old sarongs and girls in headscarves heading to a Koran recitation peer out of the black-and-white and color photos in the exhibit, organized by the UK-based humanitarian group, Save the Children, and supported by the Gran Melia.

According to a 2006 assessment conducted by the organization, about 16,000 children in Aceh live in panti asuhan. Of these, nearly 2,600 are there as a result of the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami, but the vast majority of the children were placed in the care homes prior to the disaster for a variety of socio-economic and cultural reasons, including poverty and political conflicts.

The technical aspects of photography are not the key issue in the exhibition -- they are truly beautiful pictures in their own right. Rather, it is a rare chance for these "instant" shutterbugs to lend voice to their daily lives and hopes through photographic imagery.

Another powerful aspect of the exhibition are the captions that accompany each image in both Bahasa Indonesia and in English, written by the children and reproduced without editing in the Indonesian original.

They explain the children's views and opinions -- which are probably often neglected by adults -- while telling the story of the moment captured in their photo and, through it, the much broader picture of their daily lives in the panti.

Ng Swanti, a professional woman photographer who trained the children at six separate days of workshops in Banda Aceh, held a few months before the exhibition, is surprised and pleased with the children's photos.

"I didn't train them on the technicalities of photography. I just told them to make a portrait with their hearts. And the result is beautiful," said Swanti, who is also co-founder of the Jakarta-based Rana photography foundation.

Emmett O'Malley, Save the Children project manager for A Child's Eye, said the program aimed to give the children an opportunity to express their views and learn about their rights.

"Photography is the best tool to express their opinions. We could also learn their views from their photos," said O'Malley, who is fondly called Bang (Brother) Emmet by the Acehnese children.

A Child's Eye is a concept initiated by professional photographer Jonathan Perugia, who arrived at the idea of letting children "speak" their views while observing them during the May 1998 riots in Jakarta.

"There I was with my camera, and I wondered, what would they see -- what would we see -- if I put the camera in their hands," he said at the June 12 opening of the exhibit.

The concept has so far been realized two times previously: with Jakarta street children in 1999, and with Dayak children in Sambas, West Kalimantan, from 2000-2001.

O'Malley, who was a facilitator on the Sambas program, said he was considering touring the exhibit to Yogyakarta and Bali, following the Gran Melia show.

It seems that beautiful pictures and the simple, honest thoughts of children are less attractive to many Jakartans. On Thursday, when this reporter visited the exhibit, hundreds of people flocked to witness the launch of a new cellular phone series. Of those gathered, only a very few took a glance at the photos.