FirstLook: Mobile Library, Java

FirstLook
- Photographed by Putu Sayoga
Categories
- Creatives

In 2015 Ridwan Sururi of Serang Village, central Java, Indonesia, started the Kudapustaka (Horse library), and since then, three days a week, he has visited villages and schools like Miftahul Huda Islamic Elementary School. On this day he was joined by his two-year-old son, Tria Ramadhan. Together they handed out donated books to the students. As a photographer I did this story because I was also born in a village with difficult access to books. I believe in the power of books, and I know what Mr. Sururi is doing is important.
—Putu Sayoga
www.putusayoga.net
www.arkaproject.com
@putu_sayoga @arkaproject

You may also be interested in…

Creatives

Habibi Funk’s Musical Revivals

Written by Mariam Shahin

Across North Africa a few back-street stores still sell records pressed in the ’70s and ’80s. There Jannis Stürtz has been digging for local classics to rerelease on his digital-and-vinyl label, Habibi Funk, bringing them to global audiences and illuminating some the era’s most vibrantly hybrid music scenes.

Read

The Westward Journeys of Buttons

Written by Caroline Stone

We all use them. Most fasten; some decorate. A search for origins points toward the Indus Valley and China. By the Middle Ages, buttons reached Europe along with other garment techniques and fashion influences from lands east. Their stories are as interwoven as the textiles they make possible and as varied as their infinite designs.

Read

Creatives

FirstLook: Stepwells of Chand Baori

Photograph by Victoria Lautman

The Stepwell of Chand Baori

Read

Milestones to Makkah and Madinah

Written by Peter Harrigan
Photographed by Peter Sanders
Map by Inspiral Design

In 622 CE the Prophet Muhammad and his first followers rode some 450 kilometers from Makkah to Madinah along a segment of the caravan route that had long linked the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa and the Levant. In 2005 the discovery of an isolated monolith led to a 15-year archeological quest that has identified 55 similar and regularly spaced stones that appear to predate the ninth century CE. The discoveries are now helping locate with precision historic sites, thanks to the measure of distance between the milestones: 1,609 meters, give or take a few. Whether intact or broken; standing, fallen or partially buried, each stone is now being studied, and together they tell stories of history, faith and science.

Read

Pakistani Art Trucks on a Bridge of Culture

Written by Dianna Wray
Photographs courtesy of Art 120

Colorfully painted trucks are everywhere in Pakistan, but in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a single truck by a renowned artist is helping an arts nonprofit jump-start international cultural appreciation in schools.

Read

Five Centuries of Jerusalem Soup

Written by Matthew Teller
Photographed by Mostafa Alkharouf

Nearly 470 years ago, the wife of the Ottoman sultan founded this soup kitchen as an endowed religious charity. Ever since, its cooks have arrived before dawn to begin simmering soup to ladle out later to all who come looking for a warm lunch.

Read

The New York of Anthony Jansen van Salee

Written by Tom Verde

His 19th- and 20th-century descendants became some of New York’s most glittering glitterati, but when this son of a pirate arrived in the fledgling colonial outpost of New Amsterdam in 1629 and became the first Muslim to own property in the future U.S., conflicts with Dutch authorities nearly undid his ambitions.

Read

Tastes

Spice Migrations: Ginger

Written by Jeff Koehler
Art by Linda Dalal Sawaya

Native to lands across Southeast Asia, ginger has long been used there and across the Middle East and North Africa in savory dishes, while Europeans and Americans have more recently popularized it in sweets. In Detroit, Michigan, chef Warda Bouguettaya does both.

Read

2022 Calendar: Muqarnas

Introduction by Jonathan Bloom

Dazzling, prismatic and intricately symmetrical, muqarnas is a stunning three-dimensional decoration unique to Islamic architecture.

Read

To take advantage of all features on this website, it is recommended that you allow all cookies.

You may also be interested in…

Subscribe to our newsletter