Bauxietwinning Suriname met arbeiders 1929 - 1930

Editor: So, here we have "Bauxietwinning Suriname met arbeiders," a gelatin silver print from around 1929-1930. It seems to show bauxite mining operations. There's a train, workers... a stark, almost alien landscape. What stands out to you? Curator: I see a photographic record of resource extraction and labor. It forces us to confront the social relations embedded in this seemingly neutral depiction of industrial activity. Who owns the means of production represented here? Who benefits from the bauxite, and who endures the labor? Editor: So, you're focusing on the human cost and the political economy, rather than aesthetics? Curator: Absolutely. The photograph’s material existence as a gelatin silver print is tied to industrial processes, reflecting how the raw materials, techniques, and dissemination intersect. Where does the gelatin come from, who produced the silver, how much did the camera and the development chemicals cost? Editor: That makes sense. I hadn’t considered the photograph itself as part of the whole industrial process, too. Curator: The image flattens lived realities, rendering bodies as elements within a wider system of extraction. Where does this bauxite end up, and in what manufactured goods? Think of the journey of these raw materials. Editor: It's unsettling to realize this picture is not just a landscape; it represents global economic systems in motion, transforming the land and lives in Suriname. Curator: Precisely. The photograph isn't just reflecting reality. It’s an artifact, complicit in constructing the very reality it depicts through materials, labor and intent. Editor: I never thought about landscape photography this way before. I am left thinking about all of those questions of process and cost.