“We Are Outsider” consists of twenty-five black-and-white double exposure photographs that combine images of protective fence structures with the morphological structure of lemongrass leaves. The protective fences, with a variety of design styles, were photographed from houses built in newly developing residential areas in Leuwinanggung, West Java. Meanwhile, the lemongrass leaf morphology images were captured using a microscope, sourced from lemongrass plants grown in nearby agricultural areas that directly border the residential zones.

The housing industry in the Leuwinanggung area began to develop alongside the construction of Indonesia’s first toll road project by the New Order regime, which crossed the area in the 1970s. The development of this industry has transformed agricultural lands into gated and isolated residential zones, forcing some farmers and local residents to shift professions—often becoming laborers in these private housing projects—in order to fulfill their living needs.

The boundary walls surrounding these residential areas, which directly border traditional villages and lemongrass farms, are topped with barbed wire and sharp metal spikes. These walls starkly mark the division between urban and rural spaces, emphasizing a sense of otherness for those viewing them from the outside—among them the farmers and local residents who have long lived and worked on the land.

Meanwhile, lemongrass plants—non-human entities growing right alongside these walls—possess structural similarities that can only be seen under a microscope. The micro-spikes lining the lemongrass leaf function much like the barbs on the fences, protecting the plant from external threats. In this photographic work, juxtaposing and magnifying the microscopic ridges on the lemongrass leaf with the massive, towering security fences becomes an artistic act of reinhabiting and intervening against the dominance of the housing industry’s expansion, which a development industry that slowly consumes the land and lives of those around it.