Gezicht op de afgebrande Hervormde Kerk te Harmelen 1900

Editor: Here we have a photographic print from around 1900, titled “Gezicht op de afgebrande Hervormde Kerk te Harmelen”—a view of the burnt-down Reformed Church in Harmelen. It’s attributed to an anonymous photographer from Monumentenzorg. It has a very somber and still feeling to it; what stands out to you? Curator: What I see is this almost defiant tower, standing strong amid the ruin, and yet... notice how the light catches those broken edges up top? It reminds me how even in moments of great loss, resilience often emerges not in some grand gesture, but in quiet glimmers. Like the moss growing on ancient stones, or perhaps like the stubborn hope of rebuilding? Editor: I suppose so, it's easy to imagine the lives intertwined with the church reduced to rubble. What else catches your eye? Curator: I think about the gaze of the person holding the camera; who wanted to capture that instant for remembrance? Did they want the building to stay as it was, like some morbid display for future generations? Or for others to donate and see where their donations had gone in the process of helping to restore the town? I want to feel what this building once represented: community, belonging and belief. But even destroyed and burnt, it still shows up as some type of monument in the backdrop of nature itself. You? Editor: The quiet dignity. Despite the destruction, there is beauty, an elegance in the photographic print. Something I failed to spot when looking closer before. Thank you. Curator: That is the gift of the arts. Revealing quiet truths in what we least expect, even the desolation.