Nonkrong is a word which I learned in Indonesia.
It means „coming together, drinking, smoking and hanging out with friends - not necessarily with a plan in mind“

Nevertheless, it is precisely in the "doing of nothing" (Nongkrong) that one recognises the adolescence of the youth. A group of boys who no longer define their identity only by tradition of the ancestors, but by their choice of cigarettes, tattoos, clothes and music.

On a walk in the evening I saw an open door next to a street from which noises were coming. I went to the door and saw a group of boys sitting inside. I sat down and spent time with them and became somehow part of the group.

While sitting there, listening and hanging out, I learned that this was Bibi's home and he and his friends came together to play the traditional gamelan music. Music which is commonly played in traditional ceremonies and other modern events in Indonesia and to accompany religious ceremonies, rituals, dances, weddings and social events. The boys belong to the Tenggerese community, an ethnic subgroup of Javanese who believes to be descendants of the former Hindu-Majapahit Kingdom, living mainly as farmers in 30 villages in the remote region of the Bromo volcano in East Java.

The project Orchestra of Nongkrong deals with the private space as an intersection of traditional and modern influences on young men. A space which is mixed between the mystical traditions of gamelan by the ancestors and glimpses of a globalized adolescences in modern Indonesia.