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'Cerita Kami': Youth photographers with disabilities tell their stories through pictures
An impromptu photography workshop at a community home for special needs children in Surabaya has found purpose and meaning among its participants and instructor alike. Here is a snapshot of their story.
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Learning together: Arief Budiman (third right), a batik businessman turned photography mentor, teaches youths at the Liponsos Kalijudan community home in Surabaya, East Java. When Arief started the photograph workshop, none of the group could sign, so they devised their own way of communicating. (JP/Ivan Darski)
D
uring a visit to Liponsos Kalijudan, a community home managed by the Surabaya Social Affairs Agency that has an art studio, four youths were busy taking pictures in the large backyard.
Amateur photographers Pina, 19, Kiking, 16, Mukidi, 14, and Jacky, 12, had just seen their photographs displayed in the “Cerita Kami” (our story) exhibition on online art gallery Melihat Bersama (see together). The group exhibition was presented like a professional photo essay, about their daily lives at the Kalijudan community home and the surrounding area.
All four youths are deaf and mute, but that hasn’t stopped them from participating in Kalijudan’s annual photography workshop over the past 5 years.
“We regularly go hunting for photo locations. Last week, we went to a traditional tofu [cottage industry] in Ngagel and a smoked fish [restaurant] in Kenjeran,” said Arief, mentioning two popular establishments in the provincial capital of East Java.
Today, however, the four were staying on the home’s premises because the fifth member of their team, 20-year-old Omay, was sick, explained photography mentor Arief Budiman.
Arief says that Omay, who has Down Syndrome, and the other four youths are all talented in photography.
