Binnenplaats van het huis 1890 - 1910

Editor: This is "Binnenplaats van het huis," a gelatin silver print taken sometime between 1890 and 1910 by Otto Hisgen. I’m immediately drawn to how lush and verdant the courtyard appears, especially given the photographic medium of the time. What stands out to you in this image? Curator: What I see is a loaded landscape. These idyllic depictions, particularly through the lens of pictorialism and even orientalism as suggested in its description, often glossed over the realities of colonialism. It asks us to consider: Whose house is this? Whose labor maintains this idealized space? And how does photography, as a relatively new medium, play into constructing these romanticized visions of faraway places, specifically colonial Java in this case? Editor: That's a perspective I hadn't considered. The composition itself is beautiful, but you’re right, there’s an undercurrent that I now sense, a kind of power dynamic at play. The ordered plants, the neat architecture... Curator: Precisely. The very act of framing this scene – choosing what to include and exclude – becomes a political statement. Pictorialism, while aesthetically driven, often served the interests of a specific class, perpetuating specific narratives about other cultures. What might a Javanese photographer's view of a Dutch home and garden look like at that time? Editor: A powerful question to consider. It makes me wonder about the voices and perspectives that are absent from the frame. How can we use these images to start, and not end, conversations about power, representation, and the lasting impacts of colonialism? Curator: Exactly. It challenges us to not just appreciate the beauty, but to critically analyze the context in which it was produced, to unravel its underlying power dynamics, and to seek out the untold stories intertwined within its image.