Kantoorinterieur met klerken en meubilair van suikerfabriek Goedo te Djombang op Java c. 1925 - 1930

This image captures the interior of the Goedo sugar factory office in Djombang, Java, rendered with a sepia tone that mutes the color, pushing the focus to the composition. There’s a flatness to the image, a kind of compression that pushes foreground and background together. I love the high ceilings! They’re divided into a grid that repeats throughout, making me think about the nature of work itself, the repetitiveness. The light, however, streams in from the windows, illuminating the desks where clerks sit, each at their station. You can feel the weight of labor in the way the furniture is arranged, solid and functional. It makes me think of the photographs of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who were fascinated by industrial structures, and who photographed them as though they were sculptures in an open-air museum. What does it mean to look closely, and to allow that looking to change us? The image reminds us to stay curious, and not to settle on any one interpretation.