WESEL: A JOURNEY TO DISCOVER

My work started from my curiosity about the abandoned industrial railway line (decauville) in Pemalang district, a small town in Central Java, Indonesia where I was born and raised. Many questions arose along the way, what the rails were made for, who used the rails, to what effect the rails actually had on this city. The maps made in the early 19th century that I found later began to lead me to explore the decauville line, and eventually expand my curiosity to two big commodities, sugar cane and teak wood.

Sugarcane requires teak logs to become sweet sugar. Millions of cubical teak logs will drive the big machines in the sugar mill (or Suiker Fabriek, in Dutch). Decauville was the answer to the need for a lightweight, flexible, and efficient transportation system to carry it at that time. While still operating, the decauville route spread to eight of the total 13 sub-districts in Pemalang Regency (Pemalang, Taman, Petarukan, Ampelgading, Comal, Ulujami, Bantarbolang, and Bodeh) with a total length of more than 100 kilometers. The decauville line is even integrated with the train station. Unfortunately, all of these paths are no longer active. Most of the ex-decauville lines are now converted into residential roads, highways, gardens, houses, and shop houses. Others left empty land with hundreds of stakes as markers.

I took photos in the ex-decauville, ex-sugarcane plantation, and ex-sugarmill grounds while interacting with the people who lived there continuously. It naturally influenced the thoughts I had about Pemalang, that once grew big during the Dutch colonial period because of the massive industrial sector with five sugar factories and three teak wood warehouses, to the great depression and political situation that influenced the decline of the industry and shaped it into the Pemalang seen today.