Stationsoverkapping S.S. te Tandjong Priok in aanbouw / spanning 40 Meter - lengte 200 Meter 1916 - 1924

This photograph, whose maker is now unknown, documents the construction of the Stationsoverkapping S.S. te Tandjong Priok. I think about the labor, the sheer, intense labor that has gone into building this station. The criss-cross of girders gives a sense of the enormity of the site and the scale of the build. It’s an exciting prospect – picturing this hub buzzing with people as trains pull in and out, but the image is also strangely melancholic. It makes me think of the unseen – the unknown, anonymous photographer, the countless laborers who physically hauled this place into being – the names of all these people are lost now. There’s a loneliness to the work of creation: you pour yourself into something, knowing you’ll never see the full impact of what you’ve set in motion. Yet it has its own kind of beauty; the process of creation, of adding your work to the chain that goes before and after you.