Een suikerlocomotief van de Nederlandsch-Indische Spoorwegen 1900s - 1910s

This photograph shows a sugar locomotive of the Dutch East Indies Railways, taken by an anonymous photographer. This image transports us to a colonial landscape, where sugar plantations were built on exploited land and labor. It evokes the complex, and often brutal, history of Dutch colonialism. The train becomes a symbol of industrial intrusion into the natural landscape, of how resources were extracted, and people were displaced. What does it mean for this image to be captured by an anonymous photographer? Were they a detached observer, or complicit in this system? This photograph asks us to consider the human cost of our commodities, and the ways in which our desires are often built on foundations of inequality. The sweetness of sugar carries a bitter aftertaste of exploitation.