More specifically, we will focus on a number of informal or “spontaneous” settlements also known as kampungs (villages) in the West Javanese capital of Bandung. Over 1 billion people live in informal settlements across the Global South with more than two thirds concentrated in Asia. Informal settlements – that is, urban environments traditionally known as “slums” that fall outside government control, regulation and protection – represent the fastest growing phenomenon of global urbanisation today. While informal settlements can be sites of poverty and need, they can also be places of human ingenuity, solidarity, and culture. Often exposed to risk, whether in terms of flooding or eviction due to their illegal status, kampung settlements and their inhabitants learn to live with instability and develop strategies of resilience and solidarity. On the basis of fieldwork observation, documentation, encounters, and interviews, as well as off-site research (archives, references and readings), we propose to develop – through drawing, photography and writing – a collection of “stories” which connect the everyday experience of the kampung – “on the ground”, so to speak – to larger narratives such as climate change, social justice or cultural heritage. Like the practices of experimental history in which fiction and reality merge as a literary genre, we propose to develop these kampung stories as a critical contribution to the narrative of the “spontaneous city” and the architectural genre of the “retroactive manifesto”.

Joint international research workshop organised by ENSA Paris-La Villette and Institut Teknologi Bandung

Organising team : Jim Njoo (co-coordinator), Perrine Belin, GERPHAU/ENSA Paris-La Villette / Widiyani (co-coordinator), Mai Joseph, Robert Koerner, Institut Teknologi Bandung / Wiryono Raharjo, Universitas Islam Indonesia / Christian Moniaga, Universitas Katolik Soegijapranata / Yandi Andri Yatmo and Paramita Atmodiwirjo, Universitas Indonesia / Christophe Dreyer and Ricky Arnold, Institut Français en Indonésie