A Collection of Stories examines the notion of culture and identity. Looking into memory, oral history, and ideology. For this project, I photographed relatives and friends that were tied by kinship and shared family history. I traveled and photographed people and places varying from historical sites and personal ties to my family. I was born in Germany, my parents are Indonesians who immigrated to Germany to study at University. Growing up I was surrounded by a close-knit family, my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins who are like siblings to me. We grew up with stories about our family’s lives and experiences back home. We knew that Indonesia had been colonized by the Dutch for over three centuries, we heard stories about how our grandfather and his brother had been politically persecuted and imprisoned due to their political ideology. Chinese schools were banned, and it was forbidden to speak the language or practice Chinese customs or celebrations in public.

A few years ago I asked my mother to go on a journey with me to the sites of her memories, she agreed and over the years we traveled together through the Indonesian archipelago. I found myself in places of my imagination struggled at times, until I realized that I was looking through my own lens. I found myself at a holy site, the burial place of a prophet who had married a Chinese princess. I visited friends of my family whose children carried the trauma from their parent’s experiences, I encountered relatives and strangers who allowed me into their lives. The travels I have taken, have made me understand how similar we are in our humanity, the importance of listening, and trying to understand the other. I feel like I’m both inside and outside of a place, yet I’m looking inward. There is a kind of contradiction between my eastern and western values, but it is how I look into the world.