Every single day we produce, consume, or use data. Data plays an increasingly important role in our daily lives as it permeates our choices and actions. However, much of the public discourse on data and its benefits still revolves around abstract questions with reach, value, and impact still overshadowed by technology, application, and policy-making. This “Data2Life. Life2Data.” exhibit takes us to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to explore the relationship between data and people’s everyday lives. In “Data2Life.”, we showed the process of how data flows from source to user. In “Life2Data.”, we captured how data is represented through the realities people face. For example, the condition of schools, existence of roads and status of health services, while daunting as government data, can tell visual narratives of the data in action.

This exhibit displays 13 photographs from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, covering five locations and themes. For each one, we trained community-based organisations on the basics of visual ethnography, data analysis, and photography. Through this project, we reinforced our belief that for data to lead to real change, citizens must first understand how data affects their day-to-day lives. The photographs here were taken by amateurs or volunteers, and were captured using a mixture of equipment from DSLR, to point-and-shoot cameras, and even mobile phones.

You can find the Data2Life. Life2Data. during the whole rp17 in the corridor between Stage 1 and our Networking Area.