Vrouwen planten rijst 1930 - 1940

Adeline Andrea du Celliée Muller captured “Vrouwen planten rijst” – Women Planting Rice – using a camera. It’s interesting to imagine Muller behind the camera in what looks like a vast field. Look at the bent backs of the workers as they plant. I wonder if Muller felt a connection with the repetitive, physical labor of planting, mirroring her own artistic process. Did she perhaps see her practice as a kind of "planting," sowing seeds of ideas and images? I’m always thinking about the physicality of artmaking. Here, you see the result of Muller’s physical act of holding the camera, choosing the frame, and pressing the button to release the shutter. The image is like a frozen gesture. The dark tones could be her way of highlighting the relationship between the land, labour and the people depicted. It's like a conversation across time, where each artist, each worker, responds to the world in their own way. It reminds me that art, like planting, is a form of embodied expression.