Toren van de Sint-Bavokerk te Aardenburg 1909

Curator: What strikes me immediately about this image is the contrast—the imposing verticality of the church tower versus the more grounded, horizontal structure of the building on the left. It creates a dynamic tension. Editor: Indeed. This silver gelatin print, taken around 1909, depicts the "Tower of the Sint-Bavokerk in Aardenburg". This seemingly simple photograph belies deeper complexities tied to its production and consumption as a mode of civic documentation. Curator: I think so, too. I wonder what stories it can tell about community and social hierarchies at the time, since church towers like these always act as not just a spiritual landmark, but also often a reflection of civic power. It begs questions about how we, today, continue to value and preserve religious architecture—or not. Editor: Exactly. The materiality of the photograph itself matters here. Think about the labour involved: the darkroom processes, the specific photographic paper available then, all influenced by industrial production—and all consumed to serve a bourgeois need for order and beauty in urban planning and historical archiving. We are so quick to focus only on what it *depicts* but forget about what it IS. Curator: That's valid, although to me it suggests that those processes are precisely how depictions themselves end up having such impact. It allows for its wider social narratives. And there is such melancholic and gothic atmosphere here. I think for today's viewers that makes the work very suggestive in a modern way, don't you think? Editor: I do see that element and how you use a socio-cultural lens to see this photograph as both documentation and historical residue. Considering materiality can show what it shares with our experience of our digital age – as the image begins to detach from reality. It challenges preconceived notions. Curator: Absolutely. Thinking about that detachment through the digital only enriches the meaning and importance behind archival projects such as this. Thank you for pointing that out. Editor: The pleasure was all mine. Looking at art through multiple lenses is the best method.