Ontwerp voor een penning; 300 jaar Nederlands gezag in Indië 1902

This is Johan Melchior Faddegon's design for a medal, celebrating 300 years of Dutch rule in the Indies. It’s made of plaster and seems to be all of a single colour. This makes me think about how we commemorate histories and the stories that we tell about ourselves. Look closely, and you can see how the figures have been built up from the ground. The artist has left the marks of the making process quite visible. It's clear to see how the image has been constructed, mark by mark. It reminds me a little of the kind of pared back classicism of someone like Puvis de Chavannes, though there's something more homespun about the technique, a rawness to the way that the medium has been handled. I’m always drawn to work that reveals the hand of the artist, the little imperfections and quirks that make it human. The overall impression is not so much of a pristine object, but of something that has been laboured over and that bears the traces of its own making.