Visualizing Jakarta’s Environmental Future: Art as Advocacy

Art as a Voice for Jakarta’s Youth

As a young person living in Jakarta, I often wonder what our city will become by 2050. Will climate crises consume its streets, or will creativity and community reshape its destiny? The city’s environmental challenges: floods, pollution, land subsidence, are real and urgent. Yet, numbers alone fail to capture the urgency that youth feel. Art, with its emotional power, bridges that gap: it makes invisible threats visible, ignites awareness, and conveys hope.

Contemporary Youth-Led Art Initiatives in Jakarta

Jakarta is already home to inspiring examples where youth and art intersect for environmental and civic action:

• Participatory Murals in Jatinegara, East Jakarta
  In 2022, the MAP Young People & Children’s Forums collaborated with local youth to create a mural titled “Active Youths, Positive Attitudes” at the Jatinegara Sub-district office. Over six weeks, youth from seven urban villages designed and painted visuals that reflect their experiences in families, schools, and their community, amplifying their perspectives to decision-makers. (“Local Project | Virtual Volunteering Impacting SDGs”, AISEC)
  
  

• ASEAN+ Youth Environmental Action (AYEA) 2024
  Budi Luhur University hosted ASEAN+ Youth Environmental Action, gathering youth from 20 countries to engage in environmental dialogue, painting competitions, and exhibitions. The event ended with planting 6,000 trees in Baduy Luar, blending art, advocacy, and real environmental action. (“Himahi Budi Luhur Holds ASEAN+ Youth Environmental Action 2024”, Berita Jakarta)
  
  

• UN-Supported Comic Competition: “Reshaping the Future”
  The United Nations Information Centre in Indonesia teamed up with Bumilangit to invite young artists across Indonesia to envision environmental sustainability through comics. Winner Oei Alice Zita Kusuma used superhero narratives to call attention to environmental destruction, demonstrating art’s capacity to communicate complex themes via familiar visual storytelling. (“Young Artists are ‘Reshaping the Future’ in UN in Indonesia Comic Competition”, United Nations Indonesia)
  
  

• Art Jakarta Gardens 2025: “Flower for the Future” by Abenk Alter
  At Art Jakarta Gardens 2025, artist Rizqi “Abenk” Ranadireksa presented an interactive installation inviting visitors to share their hopes on “Flower for the Future.” The work turned public sentiment into an evolving, collective artwork, countering prevailing pessimism with communal vision. (“Building Hope in Dark Indonesia”, Kompas)

Visualizing Jakarta in 2050: An Artistic Vision

By 2050, I imagine Jakarta’s highways and kampung walls alive with murals telling stories of restored rivers, flourishing green canopies, and resilient communities. In transit hubs and public squares, interactive installations, such as evolving “hope walls”, could invite people to leave their mark, turning everyday spaces into collective visions of the city’s environmental future. Rooftops, once barren, might be transformed into art-garden hybrids: eco-studios where young people paint scenes of local flora while tending herbs and vertical gardens. These spaces would function not only as creative hubs, but also as vital urban green lungs.

By mid-century, sustainability-themed art could be woven directly into education. Students might create comics, posters, performances, or murals that respond to real civic and environmental challenges, making art both a medium of expression and a language of citizenship. Festivals like the Jakarta Future Festival could evolve into platforms where art meets advocacy, featuring environmentally themed street parades, collaborative sculptures, and youth proposals illustrated through public artworks. In this way, policy ideas would move beyond words to become vibrant, visible movements across the city.

Art: A Bridge Between Culture, Politics, and Environment

Jakarta’s cultural diversity, from its Betawi roots to the influences of global migration, provides fertile ground for powerful environmental narratives. When youth channel this cultural tapestry into art, they not only strengthen a shared identity but also foster solidarity around environmental issues. Unlike policy debates that often stall in gridlock, murals, comics, and performances can ignite awareness and mobilize action with immediacy. In this way, art becomes more than expression; it evolves into collective memory, a moral argument, and a form of civic pressure, weaving together a grassroots movement that is at once cultural and political.

Creativity as Foundation for Change

Jakarta’s environmental future may be uncertain, but it is not beyond imagination. As youth, we carry paintbrushes, pens, and voices capable of reshaping how the city sees itself and its relationship with the planet. Building on today’s activism, from participatory murals to comic competitions, our artistic vision for 2050 is both rooted in reality and boldly aspirational. While art alone cannot stop floods or cleanse rivers, it can shift perspectives, spark civic participation, and help generate the political will necessary for real change. In a city struggling to adapt, creativity may well prove to be one of our strongest and most resilient foundations.