For my interview I was lucky enough to interview Kimberly, originally from Jakarta, Indonesia she moved to Australia as it was seen by her and her family as a better education, and now studies Architecture at UTS.

To start of with I asked a few general questions about culture and life on the street in jakarta , I asked about how they use public space:

“Public space is used to build shopping malls as people tend to hang out at malls. There’s almost no place in the street to hang around, as it is not a very safe area.”

I also asked about how a typical day would be living in Jakarta, and if anything is different or similar between life in Australia and Indonesia.

“The campuses around jakarta are usually located near the malls so that people will hang out at the malls after classes. Its slightly different from Australian’s life style as i have to work here and do everything myself like doing my laundry, catching public transport, whereas in Indonesia we have maid and driver of our own. “

I found these two questions really interesting, which seems from the answers as if pretty much of the social life in Indonesia is around the malls. ( for youth anyway)

To move on from these more general questions I wanted to ask her more about her experience with design in Indonesia since she is involved in design in her culture, I asked what her favourite designer was from indonesia and she said it was a group of Architects called Willis Architects located in Jakarta. The reason for this choice was:

“They designed a lot of famous restaurants in indonesia, jakarta and bali in particular.”

“I love the way they designed it and the material they chose.”

They have designed such interiors such as the Ocha Bella(), which in the names means East meets West, and the materials they chose reflects this heavily in the design.These architects are creating fantastic interiors and buildings, symbolising the rise of indonesian architecture, alongside its art and design(Wills & Kusuma, 2015). There is a distinct western influence in most of the design they do , when I asked kimberly if there was an increasing influence from the Western world on the culture/design in Indonesia she said:

“They do influence Indonesia in those areas, such as the modern building and interior design. However, in the recent years, people to start combining our own culture (such as batik) with the western world resulting in a distinct outcome.”

I think Batik is an interesting example although the process it is made with remains the traditions using a negative dye process, the patterns have adapted over time which  can portray designs from fairy tales and movies.(Hollie,G. 1982) and even now the Indonesians are doing Batik Friday, there version of casual friday.(Hasyim Widhiarto, 2011)

I also found a unique difference between the street scapes of Australia and Jakarta with my last question asking to describe both Australia And Indonesia in 5 words or less:

Australia: Democratic. Free. Independent. Settle. Safe. Laid back.

Jakarta: Beautiful. Hierarchy. Patriotism. Developing. Social gap. Busy.

References:

Wills & Kusuma, 2015. “Works – Viewed 01/05/2015<http://www.williskusuma.com/>

Hasyim Widhiarto, 2011, “ Administration calls for all-in batik day this Friday” Viewed 01/05/2015,<http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/09/29/administration-calls-allin-batik-day-friday.html>

Hollie,G. 1982, “Indonesian batik: artistry by design.”The New York Times, July 11, 1982, Vol.131, Accessed 01/05/2015