Blad 158 uit Stamboek van de leerlingen der Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage deel II (1930-1949) c. 1949

This page from a register of students, made in The Hague between 1930 and 1949, uses ink, handwriting and a pasted-in photograph to record details of young women preparing for lives overseas. The register is so interesting to me. Each entry with its individual handwriting and signature is like a little drawing, a collection of marks with different pressures and rhythms. Look at the signature of Ellen Beckeringh, a lovely freehand, confident but a little splashy, next to the clipped, careful portrait photograph. The photograph creates a break in the flow of the page, a mechanical reproduction interrupting the hand made, like the interruption of an actual person. The material qualities of the work, the surface of the page, the bleeds and blots of the ink, the slightly faded photograph, all speak to the passage of time, and bring to mind other artists who use similar found documents as a starting point for exploring ideas of memory and identity, like Zoe Leonard. What I love about art is this ongoing conversation across time, so open to interpretation.