Gezicht op de Grote of Maria Magdalenakerk te Goes 1900

This photograph of the Maria Magdalenakerk in Goes, was captured by an anonymous photographer, using the gelatin silver process. Photography, like industrial production, fundamentally changed our relationship to labor. With a click, the photographer captures the church in a fraction of a second. This seemingly simple act obscures the complexity of the labor that made the church possible in the first place. Consider the labour involved in quarrying the stone, transporting it, and then carving it with precision and care. The materiality of the church, the weight and density of the stone, speaks of human effort and the slow, deliberate process of construction. This photograph makes us reflect on the relationship between the speed of industrial processes and the more time-consuming realities of manual labor. It challenges us to consider the social and cultural implications of mechanization in relation to older, craft-based approaches to making.