Het Surabaya-hotel 1876 - 1884

This photograph of the Surabaya Hotel was taken by Herman Salzwedel, using a process that was still relatively new at the time. Consider the chemistry involved, fixing a fleeting moment onto a treated surface, and then the craft of printing, resulting in the sepia tones that you see here. The photograph is not just a window onto a particular place, but also evidence of technological advancement that changed the way we perceive and record the world around us. The image itself captures a moment in the colonial history of Indonesia, revealing the architecture, infrastructure, and social dynamics of the Dutch East Indies. Hotels like this were nodes in a global network of trade and travel, essential to colonial administration, and all the forms of labor involved. Photographs like this are not only aesthetic objects, but invaluable historical documents, revealing much about the moment of their making, and the wider world to which they belong.