Galaxies

This ongoing project consists of images obtained by an overlapping process of two photographs: a portrait of an Indonesian transgender person taken by me and a photo of a galaxy taken by Hubble Telescope. No color correction has been made, neither on the original images nor on the final image. I have been documenting the daily life of waria community in Jakarta for 5 years, so far. Once considered wise people and the ones who can speak with the Gods, because of their duality man-woman, now waria occupy the lowest level of Indonesian society and are stigmatized and bullied. I have explored with my camera the colorful rooms for rent where they live. Their bodies and gestures constantly question my identity, as the Hubble Telescope scraps portions of an unknown universe, in search of answers to the questions that mankind has always been asking: who are we? The ethereal beauty of the galaxies expands the boundaries of these tiny spaces and the crumbling buildings waria live in.