Fundering van een tempel bij Deir el-Bahri before 1862

Curator: This gelatin-silver print, attributed to Francis Frith, shows the "Foundations of a Temple near Deir el-Bahri, Thebes." It dates from before 1862. Editor: It’s stark, almost severe. The high contrast emphasizes the imposing rock face. There's a powerful sense of weight and age here, but also of destruction. Curator: Absolutely. Consider the conditions of its creation. This is early photography in a challenging environment. Frith, and others of his era, used the collodion process, meaning the photos were likely produced and developed in portable darkrooms in situ. This itself speaks volumes about Victorian material culture. Editor: Indeed, and those material constraints certainly informed the aesthetic. Looking closer, you start thinking about power, too. Who has the privilege to journey there, to document, to then display? Early photography from the region inevitably becomes a complex intersection of archaeological pursuit and colonial gaze. Curator: It's important to think about those colonial dynamics. But also consider that the archaeological expeditions were reliant upon the labour and knowledge of local people. Editor: Of course. The labor and the erasure. The visual vocabulary that it lends itself to is important. Here we are today with what appears as the face of what may as well have been there forever. And how the knowledge was created and recorded in this image is inseparable from power dynamics of its production, it leaves this picture almost speaking the colonial truth. Curator: Perhaps. It's certainly a potent object for contemplating materiality, labor, and how images like this have contributed to shaping narratives about ancient Egypt and who gets to be its modern steward. Editor: Absolutely. It’s this push and pull – between the sheer scale of history on display and a very immediate feeling of its making, and who controlled its display, is what stays with me most.