My journey of the past four years has prologue my purpose to document traditionally built South East Asian houses that will soon be lost. These ‘heirlooms’ are not hidden treasures from the families’ past, or financial inheritances that are measured in poverty or wealth, but are the families’ ancestral homes which are intentionally retained for the continuity of future generations: ‘A roof over your head.’

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a memory until it becomes a memory.”
– Dr. Seuss, 1991

Somewhere in time, these houses were immersed in happy memories. Nobody can deny this. Yet this rich past meant that no family’s ‘heirloom’ could ever really be mine. It pricks me that I cannot revive the past occurrence nor financially salvage all these old broken properties.
Their existence is but a facet of the way I wanted to remember a place by photographing the intricacies of its semiotic environment. Even in the most vividly non-eventful realm of a quotidian life these “abandoned” spaces were once brought to life by love and joy. They formed some of my closest relationships which are those I kept at a distance. It is only with happy memories that they could be restored for their true human purpose. The best memories are ones where we laugh a lot, and have a sense of community; the best places are where we have often sought inspiration and solace.

“As a spectator I was interested in photography only for ‘sentimental’ reasons: I wanted to explore it not as a question (a theme) but a wound:  I see, I feel, hence I notice, then I observe and I think and in this peculiar situation which pricks me and leaves me with nothing. “
– Roland Barthes, 1980

     Photography should reveal an imaginary space. It can only be interpreted in relations to one’s own perception, for all its beauty. It is within a photographer’s viewfinder that I seek to find a truth behind that image. For whatever seems appropriate to the eye, can also incite apprehension in the heart and mind. I see myself as part of the subjectivity of intention in a photograph, rather than a photographer who shoots pragmatically. My photography details a shift from a condition defined by a dire lack of sustainability of old houses in South East Asia. Unfortunately, when land is acquired for new development, the entire compound is demolished and raked bare. With most of the houses I have selected to photograph, the visuals have metamorphosed aesthetically into a quasi-lyrical fashion. Generically, they are maintained and kept for between four to six generations. As many a time I used my last savings to visit a South East Asian country. The only reason is; I miss the untainted peculiarity of an old house and its people’s livelihood. What I see now is the inherent connection of what a place has become at present, yet the interior of the house still proliferates an absence of the past; a dimension of the “good” for progress. But what I cannot foresee is the future fate of the house.

While researching and documenting this old Indonesian house, I felt as though I was being transported back in time. Digging up unknown pieces of information – Dutch architectural styles, ways of life, political context, and the geographical and economic influences on its interiors – which had passed through time along with its occupants for decades of dismal failures, successful triumphs, prolonged departures, new arrivals, etc. In Ellipsis (1967), Jacques Derrida speaks of the ‘trace’ as “[…] not absence instead of presence, but a trace which replaces a presence which has never been present, an origin by means of which nothing has begun.” Derrida’s concept of the ‘trace’ extends to the multiple discourses in postmodern thought, wherein a sign or word is recognised for what it cannot represent: his definition of trace signifies erasure, the simultaneous representation of all signs and nothing, a suspended present, imprint and ultimately the opening of new ideas. The environment changes me; I do not want to change the environment. I only want to associate myself with its existence and retain the traces of its authenticity.

“Things are disappearing. If you want to see anything, you have to hurry.”
– Wim Wenders, 1992

Written by Holeng
Edited by Emma Craig & Angela Collard
12.07.13