Even before advertisements usurped the fun and rebellion from the city'€™s murals, young visual artists in Jakarta responded to the city and its problems in different ways, creating works that may not have immediately looked like art but certainly had a fresh perspective on the city.

Calling himself an '€œurban interventionist'€, one artist, Irwan Ahmett, has made Jakarta his playground with a project titled Urban Bender.

'€œI play with chaos,'€ Irwan said about Urban Bender. '€œBecause play is a gun.'€

Irwan said that in Jakarta, the law of the jungle ruled, creating tension in public spaces. '€œIn the beginning, I insisted: let us correct our ways.'€ Later, however, it was difficult to create order among Indonesians, he said, one needed understanding and what Indonesians call gotong royong, or community cooperation.

One of Irwan'€™s works, Mouse Deer Crossing the Street, has shown that understanding and gotong royong did prevail amid chaos. The work is inspired by the fable Mouse Deer and the Crocodile, which tells of a clever mouse deer who tricks a crocodile who wanted to make her his lunch.

Mouse deers and crocodiles: Artists Irwan Ahmett (left, orange T-shirt and hat) and Tita Salina (right, green T-shirt) cross the street at busy intersection in South Jakarta by hopping on the seats of motorcyclists that block the pedestrian crossing. Courtesy of Irwan Ahmett

One day, the mouse deer wanted to cross a river and tells the crocodile that she got an order from
the king to count the number of crocodiles in the river for the palace to cook enough food for the reptiles.

The crocodile called on his friends, who lined up from one side of the river to the other. The mouse deer then used them as stepping stones, counting until she was safely across the river.

Irwan imitated the mouse deer, but in the video the crocodiles are motorcyclists who often stop in the middle of pedestrian crossings, forcing passersby to maneuver between the vehicles to get across.

In Irwan'€™s work, he and his wife, artist Tita Salina, took off their shoes on the curbside and began hopping on the seat of one motorcycle to another until they got to the other side.

One interesting thing shown by the video is that none of the motorcyclist objected to their actions. One of them even helped Tita, holding her hand to steady her steps.

'€œI used volunteers to fill in the empty gaps to make a smooth crossing, but the one who offered the helping hand was not one of our volunteers. He was just a motorcyclist,'€ Irwan said.

Irwan said that a thug (preman) from one of the busiest intersection in South Jakarta was excited about the project, even tagging along to cross the street with the couple. '€œI met the preman again one day, and he said, '€˜Let'€™s do it again '€” this time use the brown stuffed crocodiles!'€™'€

His most recent piece is the trashball project, which took about a year to complete.

Last year Irwan visited a neighborhood in South Jakarta, soliciting help from local children there to collect plastic garbage to be crafted into a ball.

Reunion: The children in Pejaten, South Jakarta roll the trashball they helped make the previous year. Irwan brought the trashball to the neighborhood again after it got much bigger. Courtesy of Irwan Ahmett

The idea came from the principle of a snowball, Irwan says. '€œWe don'€™t have snow, but we do have a lot of trash here.'€

First, it was the size of a small soccer ball. Irwan and the children played with it.

Within a year, the ball had become human sized.

Last month he rolled the ball back into the same neighborhood. '€œThe children went wild upon seeing their ball get bigger,'€ Irwan says. '€œIt was like they were in a trance, trying to climb it.'€

Irwan and his team finally found a spot at a busy intersection in Kalibata, South Jakarta, where they placed the ball '€” now more than 200 kilograms. Two days later, it was gone.

He jokes that the trashball was probably taken by an art collector.

While '€œurban intervention'€ is the preferred choice of Irwan, other young artists respond to the city in other ways.

One event that regularly showcases such responses is Jakarta 32°C, which every two years makes a call for project proposals from people under 30 years old who reside in Jakarta and its neighboring cities. The event culminates in an exhibition at the National Gallery.

Top five: Cut and Rescue by Aditya Fachrizal Hafiz dan Mario Julius, a mixtape project to interpret Jakarta with audio, was among the best five works at Jakarta 32°C last year. Courtesy of Jakarta 32°C

Young crowd: Jakarta 32°C event attracts young crowds, who enjoy looking at the playful exhibited works. Courtesy of Jakarta 32°C

Andang Kelana, secretary-general of Forum Lenteng and the chairman of Jakarta 32°C, said that since the event'€™s first iteration in 2004, the works displayed have mostly comprised responses to Jakarta'€™s problems.

'€œThey don'€™t really pretend to change the city but only respond to problems,'€ Andang says. '€œSome are polite, some are defiant, but we give them freedom.'€ The most important thing in a piece was the research behind it, he adds. Once proposals are accepted, those selected undergo workshop sessions with more accomplished artists like Irwan, Andang or those from the RuangRupa collective.

One selected piece was a long cartoon depicting trains and speech balloons containing conversations that the artist overheard onboard commuter trains.

Another took the form of an intervention at several bus shelters in Jakarta by, for example, attaching a swing at one stop (it vanished within days) or creating a small garden nearby (so did the plants).

Afra Suci Ramadhan, is the co-founder and coordinator of Pamflet, which schedules monthly discussions on youth culture, as young people could make creative works with close connections to political and social issues.

'€œYoung people usually give new perspective,'€ Afra said.

To see more examples, visit the Indonesian Street Art Database or visualjalanan.org, or watch the mouse deer and trashball videos on Irwan Ahmett'€™s Youtube channel.