Batavia - Tanah-Abang 1863 - 1866

Curator: Here we have "Batavia - Tanah-Abang", a gelatin-silver print created sometime between 1863 and 1866 by Woodbury & Page. Editor: There's a stillness to this image, a quiet serenity. The almost monochromatic tones give it a dreamy, melancholic feel, as if the jungle is holding its breath. Curator: That stillness is something I immediately connected with, too. It’s a constructed stillness, though. Woodbury & Page, a British photographic firm, were really capturing and marketing an idea of the Orient. This is landscape-as-commodity, wouldn’t you say? Editor: Absolutely. The even lighting, the controlled perspective...it’s all designed to project an image of tranquil exoticism. The perfectly framed waterway whispers promises of safe passage, but it hides a more complex story, I think. Canals, in general, often symbolized control over nature, domestication, a transformation of the wild into something orderly. What kind of statement does this say about colonialism? Curator: Colonial power, perhaps. By then, the Dutch controlled what is now Indonesia, then called the Dutch East Indies, for over two centuries. Think about how the camera transforms not only the land, but also the native inhabitants, into spectacles. Editor: And photography becomes complicit, an apparatus of that transformation. I keep wondering how it was to actually be in that place in that time. I imagine the oppressive heat and humidity, and the insects. What do you think these kinds of images say about "truth"? Curator: Precisely, the staged image of truth becomes a tool. The light plays in the composition, directing our eye and creating an idealized reality. Even in what appears as documentary evidence, you see layers of artifice. Perhaps it shows how images help cultivate and sustain ideologies, particularly related to landscape and place. Editor: Well, seeing it with you has given me pause about accepting images on their face, especially these older kinds of artworks, so I guess my journey with this image won’t end today. Curator: And I'm certainly leaving with fresh ideas about how landscape is manipulated, both in photography and our understanding. I might have to rethink my vacation plans now!