Blad 58 uit Stamboek van de leerlingen der Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage deel II (1930-1949) Possibly 1934 - 1936

Curator: We are looking at “Blad 58 uit Stamboek van de leerlingen der Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage deel II (1930-1949),” believed to be from around 1934-1936, a collage combining ink, paper, prints, and photographs. Editor: It has a quiet solemnity to it. The formal record-keeping format is disrupted by these inserted personal snapshots. There is something intimate yet distanced about it. Curator: Absolutely. The composition juxtaposes the public and the private, the bureaucratic with the personal. You can see a strong use of typography with careful handwriting detailing personal histories alongside the pasted photographic records. Editor: Indeed, and observe the repetition of lines – both written and printed. They give the page a sense of underlying order, disrupted only by the more emotional placement of photographs of people, like symbolic eruptions. The sepia tones throughout amplify that effect. Curator: Consider what this scrapbook represents for the students documented within it, and what that would represent for the greater colonial system during this historical period. It presents not just an archive but a kind of cultural encoding of identity and role. Editor: Yes, I also see visual connections through framing—each photograph is itself a miniature frame within a larger one, emphasizing that process of constructing and containing identities within the context of this colonial school. Curator: Right. The work's resonance stems from its blending of the document and the artifact, turning something meant for simple record-keeping into a poignant narrative of identity, time, and place. Editor: I came to see a commentary about individuals in the midst of being categorized, of becoming evidence. Thank you.