Achtergevels van woningen aan een rivier in Batavia Possibly 1920 - 1924

Editor: This drawing, possibly from the 1920s, is titled "Achtergevels van woningen aan een rivier in Batavia" by Willem Witsen. It appears to be pencil and etching on paper. The rooftops and the overall composition feel so intricate. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Well, seeing this through an activist lens, I immediately consider the colonial context of Batavia, now Jakarta, during that period. Witsen, a Dutchman, depicts the rear facades of buildings along a river. But what stories are absent here? Whose perspectives are silenced by this seemingly simple cityscape? Editor: That's an interesting way to frame it. I was just seeing an interesting composition, not thinking about who isn't represented. Curator: Exactly. The focus on architecture invites us to consider issues of power, property, and perhaps even exploitation. Think about who likely inhabited those buildings, their relationship to the colonizers, and what that river represented as a conduit of trade and control. What do you notice about the perspective? Does it feel like an intimate, ground-level view, or something more distant? Editor: Now that you mention it, it does feel detached, almost observational, as though Witsen is documenting rather than immersing himself in the scene. Curator: Precisely! And what does it mean to document a colonized space with this level of detachment? It encourages us to question the gaze, the power dynamics at play. Editor: That shifts my understanding entirely. I hadn’t considered how the artist's position might influence the artwork's meaning. Curator: Art is never created in a vacuum. Recognizing those historical and social forces allows us to see beyond the surface and engage in critical dialogues about representation, power, and whose stories get told.