Magical Realism: Rethinking Malioboro Through Photographs

Along with the modernization, Malioboro, the famous shopping street in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, has gradually transformed itself which caused a change in its own image and symbol. The hustle and bustle of Malioboro always invites visitors and even local people to regularly visit it for it is the landmark of Yogyakarta city. Thousand of stories and photographs have been made in Malioboro, yet, more to come and to be made. This paper aims to reconstruct the value and meaning of Malioboro using photography as the medium. There were three samples of montage photographs to be analyzed due to their unique and intriguing representation. The visual presented in the photography artworks may create new meanings, therefore a reconstruction of value and meaning of Malioboro as the object of photography could emerge. Magical realism as an approach to analyze the photographs will elaborate them into five characteristics of magical realism. The binary opposition; the amalgamation of fantasy and realism, exposed in the photographs of Malioboro is expected to make the audience to rethink and maybe even redefine the picturesque of the enchanted Malioboro.