Telling en registratie van dode ratten in Malang 1900 - 1935

This stereograph, by Neville Keasberry, captures a scene in Malang, depicting the counting and recording of dead rats. I find myself wondering about Keasberry’s intentions here. Was he drawn to the gritty realities of life? What did he think while framing the shot? There’s an echo of documentary photography here, but with a formalism that suggests something more deliberate. The composition is structured, the light carefully considered. There is a dialogue happening between the figures in the hut and their environment. What does it mean to count the dead? Is this work about hygiene or a meditation on mortality? It’s this kind of exchange—between artist, subject, and viewer—that makes art so compelling. We’re all participating in an ongoing conversation, riffing off each other’s ideas and experiences. The beauty lies in the ambiguity, the space for multiple interpretations.