Blad 109 uit Stamboek van de leerlingen der Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage deel I (1921-1929)

This page from a student register at the Colonial School for Girls and Women in The Hague was made in the 1920s, but we don’t know by whom. The register appears to be hand-written, with each applicant afforded a space to provide some of their own biographical information. The pages have a real presence, the lines feel loose, like a quiet rhythm of handwriting. Each contains a glued photograph. Look at the fifth woman on the page, Henriette Elisabeth Catharina Krämer. She has included with her photo a comment, ‘met apologies’, with apologies. It seems she did something that required atonement. It is an intimate detail which invites us to speculate. The book seems to invite a kind of emotional reading that embraces both ambiguity and multiple interpretations, like the best art, but also like the best administrative record!