Space for Rent
By Agung Nugroho Widhi
9 January 2008
I took these photographs in my hometown, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. For me, billboard or advertisement sign is a kind of stereotype landscape of a place that we call a city, instead of skyscraper of course. It will always big, gigantic and eye catching and we can find it "as far as" we look in the city. In this series, I chose to take the blank, empty billboards because I just don't want to advertise the advertisement back through my photos and I'd like to ask some questions through this photo series. Can that billboard be a sign or signifier as well like a compass, bus terminal, gas station or shops which can show you the directions to go to some places or signifier if you get lost in the streets? Do they have a significant existence, based on its high level of temporariness in the context of a city landmark? Billboard as a sign, signifier or just an asset of a city?
For me, characteristically they are not more than big empty objects, which will always look full and crowded, but they have no sound, just empty spaces for rent.
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