@Benjamin Soedira. Share 1, From series Forgein Sand.

Photo and text by BenJamin Soedira

Ben Soedira’s ‘Foreign Sands’ is an exploration into what constitutes as “home”. Having lived in a country foreign to his parent’s background, Soedira has been surrounded by the modernisation of culture and people. The photographic body of work uses the metaphor of the landscape to visually express the growth and development on which people have influenced a city.

@Benjamin Soedira. Hold 2, from series Forgein Sand.

Dubai is home for me despite it officially on paper being Glasgow; the work visually in many people’s eyes may seem quite foreign. However I do feel like everyone can relate to it in someway, as we more and more begin to question our identity daily. Our access to the world becomes easier and we dream of moving away to set up home somewhere else, leading us to question where am I from? And what truly is home for me?

@Benjamin Soedira. Influenced Landscape 3, From series Forgein Sand.

And with a city changing daily I struggle to recognise and associate myself with a place, a place that I feel strangely foreign to but at the same time very comfortable in. Yet with all this in motion it excites me to see my home shift and expand in new directions; a place that allows all cultures and nationalities to embody something from their own motherland to this new home.

@Benjamin Soedira. Earth and House, from series Forgein Sand.

Earth and House. This particular image embodies the project Foreign Sands, from its dusty coloured palette by which the sky and landscape blend into one. To its depiction of time with the contrasting glass high rise, alongside the aged housing. The image clearly depicts the overall theme of foreign materials shaping the city, as well as the more metaphorical idea of the ever shifting landscapes of Dubai. With its coastal winds shaping the structure of sand dunes on a daily basis. The sand becomes a structure in itself, with it potentially being the start of a new construction project. The image displays four clear layers, the sky and wind, the modern skyscrapers of Dubai, the aged housing that once was part of Dubai and finally the sand and its potential to be a new project. Earth and house draws the idea of foreign elements whilst also projecting the metaphorical idea of time and the urban amnesia that comes with it.

@Benjamin Soedira. Share 2, from series Forgein Sand.

Soedira’s new work and current work in progress ‘Jongen’ aims to explore a family history entangled in repression and landscape. Through which Soedira will travel through Indonesia to West Papua (fathers birthplace) to reunite with family, along with understanding an identity so little is known about. Soedira hopes to break down preconceptions of Indonesian identities by slowly moving forward with his fathers motherland, West Papua. A dark colonial past alongside the dizzying everyday life of a place Soedira is still navigating. ‘Jongen’ aims to find answers in a place where family and identity have been out of reach.

To learn more, visit artist website.