2 cent van Nederlands Indië,1833 1833

This is a two-cent coin from the Dutch East Indies, minted in 1833 during the reign of King Willem I. It’s made of copper, a common material for coinage. Consider the social context of this small, everyday object. The coin's materiality speaks volumes about labor, power, and colonial exploitation. Copper itself would have been mined, processed, and shipped, all through extensive systems of labor. The coin was then die-struck in a factory, probably in the Netherlands, and shipped to the Dutch East Indies. The coin represents the circulation of value within the colonial system, but also the exploitation of resources and labor in the Dutch East Indies. This little disc embodies the material reality of Dutch colonial ambitions. Looking at the coin, we can see the inherent relationship between the seemingly mundane and the grand scale of historical forces.