John Boyd Macdonald
John Boyd Macdonald
The rainy season has finally and properly arrived, which (counter-intuitively) means that we are getting more clear blue skies and sunshine – with a heavy storm every day or two. We are continuing to see new and often surprising things,…
A couple of weekends ago, our new friend (and workmate) Lelie very kindly invited us up to visit her village of Tewang Rangkang, on the Katingan River about 80km (or 2 hours) to the northwest of here. It’s a Dayak Ngaju…
One of the nice by-products of the after-school art classes at the YUM library, which are now co-hosted by Karen, is that she makes connections with families around the immediate area. So, at the Sunday produce market at Tangkiling this…
A few weeks ago we were invited to attend an Idul Adha event in the (mostly Javanese Muslim) village of Marang – about 20km from here. We rode our little Yamaha Jupiter to the village, bouncing along very slowly on…
It’s the tail-end of the Dry Season (Musim Kering) here in Central Kalimantan. Here (and in parts of Sumatra) it’s also known as Musim Kebakaran (‘the Burning Season’), because of the prevalence of man-made fires in the forest and…
Last week I went north up the (Rungan) river with some of my new workmates to check on the condition of home gardens in the village of Kanarakan, which has no road access. It’s still the dry season, so the…
Chicken sate vendor, Jogjakarta. It was 17th August – Independence Day – and the streets and footpaths of Jogja were streaming with people out be part of the festivities for the big day. Families with little kids waving their red-and-white…
My exhibition (Sekala: ritual and ceremony in Bali) continues at PhotoAccess here in Canberra (PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery in Manuka, at the corner of Manuka Circle and NSW Crescent) until next Sunday 11 March. The experience of putting on my…