Tracing memory, loss, and cultural inheritance through the photographic lens
In a world where photographs often chase spectacle, Yoese Mariam turns her camera inward. Her work isn’t loud: it’s deliberate, vulnerable, and honest. With a background in geoscience and a creative practice rooted in process and healing, the Bandung-born photographer creates bodies of work that feel less like projects and more like deeply lived experiences.
Her two photobooks: Three Photos Left (2023) and Landep (2024), serve as companion pieces in what could be called a visual memoir in two acts. Through each, Yoese confronts themes of grief, memory, familial conflict, and cultural identity; not with resolution, but with grace.
Act I: Three Photos Left: Returning Home Through Process
Released in July 2023, Three Photos Left is Yoese Mariam’s first photobook and an intimate tribute to her late father. It traces her emotional return to Bandung, the city where she was born and raised: not just geographically, but emotionally and spiritually. “Photography became a form of therapy,” she shares, “a way to come to terms with my past and all the memories that come with it.”
The work blends three key creative processes: her own photographs, the meditative cyanotype printing and toning technique, and hand-drawn illustrations by artist Alodya. The cyanotype process with its slow, tactile steps and deep blue hues allowed Yoese to physically engage with her grief. The toning of these prints using natural materials such as trumpet flowers, tobacco leaves, coffee, and dried leaves infused the work with personal meaning. These elements weren’t chosen at random: they are intimately tied to memories of her father and became symbolic tools for mourning and reconnection.
Alodya’s illustrations further bridge the gap between recollection and imagination; they help Yoese reconstruct moments from her childhood. One drawing recalls a walk up a hill surrounded by trumpet flowers: a fleeting but vivid memory of father-daughter connection. These collaborative visuals expand the emotional terrain of the book, adding softness and dreamlike texture to an already heartfelt narrative.
Three Photos Left is a book about absence and presence: about what’s left behind and what slowly returns in a different form. It invites readers not to look for answers, but to sit with the complexity of remembrance.
Act II: Landep: Cutting Through Silence
If Three Photos Left is about returning, Landep is about reckoning. Released in August 2024, this second book sharpens Yoese’s exploration; it peels back layers of cultural identity, family history, and the spiritual weight of the Javanese keris.
The keris: a traditional Javanese dagger known not only for its craftsmanship but also for its spiritual and supernatural significance, becomes the central object of inquiry in Landep. It’s more than a symbol: it’s a key that unlocks stories of power, morality, and fate within Yoese’s own family. “A keris has shaped the fate of my family,” she writes. “Every story carries a moral.”
The title Landep, which means “sharp” in Javanese, speaks on multiple levels. It refers to the physical blade of the keris, the perceptiveness required to navigate emotional truth, and the way people often perceive Yoese herself. It’s a word that cuts: literally and metaphorically.
Unlike her earlier book, which focused on quiet rituals of remembrance, Landep confronts what is unspoken and unresolved: family conflict, inherited belief systems, and the tension between rationality and the supernatural. Her journey to understand the keris led her not to distance herself from its mystical implications, but to embrace them; accepting that the supernatural is deeply woven into cultural identity, especially in Javanese tradition.
Through symbolic materials like tobacco and trumpet flowers—reappearing from her previous work—Yoese creates a visual thread that ties personal grief to cultural exploration. But in Landep, these objects don’t soothe: they provoke, challenge, and ultimately illuminate.
A Memoir in Two Acts: Tender, Sharp, and Unflinchingly Human
Together, Three Photos Left and Landep form a diptych: two deeply introspective works that reflect Yoese Mariam’s evolving relationship with memory, identity, and healing. The first is an embrace of the past; the second is a confrontation with its legacy.
Both books showcase her ability to combine photographic practice with spiritual inquiry, emotional storytelling, and collaborative process. Whether it’s through the tactile tones of cyanotypes or the ancestral symbolism of the keris, her works offer more than visuals: they offer space to feel.
Yoese reminds us that healing doesn’t always come through answers. Sometimes it arrives through ritual, reflection, or simply the courage to return to what hurts: with tenderness and truth.
About the Artist
Yoese Mariam is a photographer, geoscientist, and yoga instructor based in Indonesia. Her interdisciplinary background shapes her intuitive and process-driven approach to photography. Her works Three Photos Left and Landep have received attention for their emotional clarity and cultural depth; they form a distinct voice in Southeast Asian visual storytelling.
View Landep from Yoese Mariam