A story from someone who spent eighteen years of his life in a city that almost everyone does not know the exact location.

Story from the South is my effort to record my born city, a small city located on the south coast of Java. Born, grew up, and spent my adolescence life there makes me know every corner of the city as I know my own body.

To me, this city is one of the magical cities. In that city, I can feel time is running very slow. I can feel the thin line between real and surreal. I can feel subtle feelings as the air moves slowly through my hair. When that feeling arises and the time is very slow, I see the people in it walking like waves and their voices become the sounds that sound when we hallucinate. In this project, mostly I do photograph alone. The solitude moment mixed with things that I can only feel in this city bringing a magical moment to me. I feel trance in the streets of this city. I feel wild, no control, and depressed at the same time. I can take hours to wandering alone around the streets at day or night, tirelessly. Photographed everything in the streets, as much as possible. A Moment that would be hard to find elsewhere. That moment made me feel comfortable, like a lost boy who return to his mother.

As a local born, this project is a response to the development of this city which participated formed me for eighteen years of my life there. I grown up along with this city. I know everything first in this city. Photographs that appear in this project are my experiences during eighteen years of life in this city. These photographs tell about my memories of this city, about how I see my born city as a loner who rotates toward solitude.

I can see this city deeper than anyone else, because I have strong bond between me and my born city. I choose photography as medium, because I believe photograph is timeless.In the end, Story from the South is meant to keep me remember my roots, my born place which that formed me in eighteen years. This project is a tribute to the small old city who has slow development in the middle of globalization and modernization. To my born city which look alike labyrinth that called me to walk in it, as far and as long as I had gone away.

About Bayu Wira Handyan

Bayu Wira Handyan (b. 1993) is a photographer based in Semarang, Indonesia. He currently studies Journalism at the Department of Communication in Diponegoro University. Besides his personal-intimate documentary work, he mainly focuses on transition and modernization that happened in his born town, Purworejo (a small town located in south coast of Java) and contemporary issues that relate with Javanese culture. His works has been exhibited locally and internationally. [Official Website]