Gezicht op het Goenoeng-Perigi Woningplateau 1921 - 1922

Curator: Let's talk about this intriguing gelatin silver print titled "Gezicht op het Goenoeng-Perigi Woningplateau," created around 1921-1922 by an anonymous photographer. Editor: It has a strange stillness, doesn't it? That almost monochrome palette drains the vibrancy—and my attention is pulled to the stark division of light and shadow in that excavated earth in the foreground. I can feel the weight of all that removed material, like a wound. Curator: You're picking up on something essential. Look at how the earth seems sculpted, shaped by labor. This wasn't a pristine landscape, but a site of production, a place where workers physically reshaped the land. The gelatin silver process, too, speaks of labor—the careful preparation, the darkroom magic... Editor: And consider the social context! Housing developments, implied prosperity...but achieved at what cost? Pictorialism aesthetic mixed with street photography feels almost like an obscuring romanticism, a gilded depiction of industry's effects on labor. What stories do these people's worn hands whisper? Curator: Exactly! Pictorialism allowed photographers to manipulate their prints and assert their artistry, somewhat blurring the line between reality and idealized vision. Maybe that artistic choice highlights a selective focus on progress while concealing the hard labor sustaining that same project. There are buildings perched along the hills, partially hidden in vegetation and partially emerging into the light. This position makes the space more picturesque and alluring, with the potential to be inhabited or worked. Editor: All of those tonal manipulations, carefully framing the rough with soft textures; but there's still so much we *don't* see. We can’t quite bridge that divide into its material depths. Curator: The choice to portray it like this forces me to think about what photography promises – what does it really deliver? Is there really such thing as a single 'truth' as this image might suggest at a single glance? Editor: It makes one ponder all of those inherent art historical power dynamics as the piece shifts the relationship with nature. That’s the heart of the matter. A haunting beauty built on a very specific human endeavor. Curator: Absolutely, and grappling with those visual, technical, and societal layers... I think that’s where the true engagement begins.