Georges en Hans Bergsma bij een water op Sumatra, naakt 1914 - 1926

This photograph, of uncertain date and authorship, shows two nude boys, Georges en Hans Bergsma, by a Sumatran waterway. In its time, the Dutch East Indies were a popular source of exotic imagery, informing European audiences about colonial life and the racialized bodies of the colonized. This picture, however, seems to take a different path: these are clearly European children, and the intent does not appear to be documentary. Is it simply a family snapshot? Or is there something more complex at play? What was the role of photography in constructing the self-image of colonial administrators and their families? How did it mediate and negotiate the distance between colonizer and colonized? To answer these questions, we must consider a wide range of historical sources, from family albums and personal letters to official government archives. In the end, our understanding of this artwork depends on reconstructing its original social and institutional context.