I have worked and lived for 8 years in fishing villages in Indonesia with the Bugis and Bajo communities, all Austronesian refugees better known as “Sea Nomads”.

Among the 17,000 islands that make up Indonesia, approaching Komodo National Park, you can see a floating favela in the distance with its dazzling tinfoil roofs that reflect the sunrays. This crowded village has nearly 4,000 souls, mostly Bugis and Bajos, emigrated from Sulawesi, an Indonesian island near Borneo, the epicenter of global marine biodiversity. The presence of these communities in the coral triangle dates back to 40,000 BC. J.-C., and is identified as the legacy of one of the first migrations of hominids out of Africa 900,000 years ago. These peoples have such an intimate relationship with the sea that science reports advanced genetic modifications of the spleen and lungs, giving them an advantage in freediving and holding out for up to 13 minutes at the bottom of the sea.  They used to travel in caravans of dozens of boats tied-up one to the other, following the currents and fish schools over thousands of kilometers between Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Fishing is not a means of subsistence; it is a philosophy of life. These peoples have always known how to live-in harmony with the sea, and live almost exclusively from fish, seafood and rice, they have a very limited impact on their environment. Beyond their genetic legacy, many causes jeopardize their way of life with the rhythm of monsoons and periods of drought, disrupted by climate change. The depletion of large fishing stocks, the acidification of the oceans, the warming temperature of the oceans, plastic pollution which is found in microparticles in the fish they eat, drought of the rare clear water wells on the islands, rising waters and coastal erosion. 

I made this series in 2019 during a stay of a moon (in Indonesian the word bulan means a month and also the moon) in the village of Pasir Putih near Komodo, where I developed very strong ties with these families who welcomed me during my various missions since 2010. It is a work I choose to print in gum bichromate, for it’s fading aspect. I did develop and realise all this work myself.