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Your project focuses on the impact of Indonesia's future capital city on East Borneo’s Indigenous people. Can you elaborate on how you are putting together the story?

I’m focusing on this scientist group that is monitoring how the sound is changing in the forest. They use bioacoustics to monitor how the ecosystem is changing. They kind of wanted to record a baseline of what the biodiversity is like there, and then over time, see how that changes based on how the construction impacts different species that you can hear. This Indigenous group, the Balik, have lived there for generations and have a way of life and have used the forest. They're forest-dependent people. They source livelihood from the forest, historically, and they have some cultural markers--for example, when this type of monkey calls at whatever time, we know that it's dawn, or we know that it's going to rain. If the monkey is calling at a time of day that it doesn't usually call, then that means a death will occur in the village. It's kind of cultural and traditional ecological knowledge that this group has, and they are at risk of losing a lot of that heritage because of the construction. I'm hoping that my film is able to talk about the impact of this capital city on them through this sound science project.

What led you to pursue this story?

I was really interested in climate relocation stories and climate adaptation stories, so I just started reading academic articles. I read about how Indonesia is moving its capital city, because Jakarta is going to be underwater very soon. It's like 40% below sea level, and with sea level rise and flooding issues and all these issues that Jakarta has, the capital is already compromised, so they are building this whole new city, and that was crazy to me. I was like, “Why haven't I read about this?” Because just building a whole new city out of nowhere in Borneo, that seems crazy. Also, the fact that it was specifically framed as “this is a climate adaptation project,” because we know this existing capital city is doomed, so we're just going to build another city over here. That was crazy to me. And then I later learned that, internally in Indonesia, it's not really viewed as a climate-related project. It's really viewed as a nation-building project. A lot of people there don't see the relationship to climate change, which was very surprising to me. And so that is why I got interested in the story.

What is your favorite part of the fellowship so far?

I would say getting to know the fellows and building a little community in the CEJ is my favorite part so far. I've really enjoyed some of my classes and getting to learn new things. I've been taking two kinds of more arty-focused classes, and so I feel like that's helping inform my creative practice.

What are your favorite classes this semester?

I am really liking Environmental Cinema with Erin Espelie. I didn't think about how cinema has treated the environment, environmental issues, nature, and climate change. So that's been interesting, and it's been cool to get exposure to different kinds of films and see how that sparks new ideas for me.

I've also enjoyed my sound class Sound Practices with Betsey Biggs, because as a filmmaker, I have always focused more on the image side of the equation, but film is very much also about sound. And because my project is also focused on sound, I wanted to bring that more to the front of my mind and see how sound can be prioritized. And if I prioritize sound, how that might change the creative process? Hopefully it's planted a bunch of seeds that I will see sprout eventually.

What do you do for fun in Boulder, outside the fellowship?

I like to hike, and I like to go skiing, and I like to make art and go dancing and just get together with friends and go see concerts.