From Dublin to Jakarta for Bloomsday
For Bloomsday 2025, Embassy Jakarta has crossed the Java Sea.
Our boat, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Pulau Kelor and Environs.
It all began earlier this year, when a collaboration with the Maritime Museum in Jakarta led the Embassy team on a visit to the Thousand Islands archipelago, north of Jakarta. On one of those small islands rich in history, an unexpectedly familiar structure awaited us under a scorching sun. The ruins of a Martello Tower stand on the island of Pulau Kelor.
From Dublin to Jakarta
Opening of Ulysses
Built under Dutch rule around 1850, and with local materials, it lies over 12,000 kilometres from the Martello Tower in Dublin where the opening of “Ulysses” is set. It lies in ruins now, damaged by a tsunami caused by the 1883 eruption of Krakatau.
The tower inspired the Embassy to create a new cultural connection between Ireland and Indonesia.
Martello Towers
The Embassy returned to Pulau Kelor to shoot a video to bring the two Martello Towers together for the first time. The Java Sea is bluer and warmer than the sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea of Dublin Bay. But even on the far side of the world, there is an echo of “Ulysses”.
