Text by Farabi Fakih
Source: Karbon Journal, published by ruangrupa
http://www.karbonjournal.org/en/archives/detail.php?ID_focus=4
The 1996 launching of ‘Kota Legenda’ or the ‘City of Legends’ near the
Jakarta – Cikampek toll road might be one significant mark for a new era of Indonesian imaginations. The City of Legends is Indonesia’s first ‘travel town’. The styles of the houses offered are varied and a kitsch: You can buy a house in the style of the American Colonial, Classical Europe, or Japan. This is the promise: the world in your hands, without your having to leave Indonesia. This was also what the Jakarta middle class wanted due to the shifts that they and their country had been experiencing since 1985. Thse shifts created fragmented imaginations about new identities, which in turn would affect the imagination on Indonesia itself.
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Submitted by Binna Choi on 13 October, 2009 - 14:34
