Selayar Coast: Ancestry Gift of Thoughts

Documentary · South Sulawesi, 2021

Selayar Island, South Sulawesi, 2021 I made this series in college, for my final thesis: a photostory book about how the coastal communities of Selayar live with the sea, and what they’ve learned from it over generations. Most of that knowledge isn’t written down. You find it in objects and in work done by hand, so that’s what I photographed. Sero. A sero is a fixed fish trap built in the shallows. The fish come in with the tide and can’t find their way out. I photographed the trap itself and the catch being collected. It takes only what the water gives, with no engine and no net dragged across the reef. The Selayar sword. In the forge, I followed a blade from raw steel to finished edge. The steel comes from old vehicle shock absorbers, so the smiths are turning scrap into a tool they’ll use for years. I shot the hammering from start to finish, the heat, the sparks, the slow shaping. Wooden goggles. Round swimming goggles carved from wood, made by hand and used for diving. A simple design, and it works. Looking at these now, I notice how little is wasted in any of it. Traps that fish with the tide, blades made from discarded steel, goggles made from a piece of wood. These are ways of living that take care of the place they depend on, and I think that’s what sustainable living should be about. I'm not just visiting a coast, but learning how the people there have looked after it, and leaving it the way you found it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - The hut inside farm barrier. Patta Sorong Hut. On the making. Patta Sorong The Glasses Young Boy with The Glasses Metal Doing Doing . . . . . .

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