Bloeiende koffiebomen, Sumatra (Blühende Kaffeebaüme) c. 1885 - 1900

Carl Kleingrothe made this photograph of blossoming coffee trees in Sumatra. The photograph encapsulates several ideas about the social and cultural context of this region, then part of the Dutch East Indies. The orderly rows of coffee trees speak to the colonial project of resource extraction. Coffee plantations were big business, but they relied on exploited labor, and they displaced other forms of agriculture. Kleingrothe’s composition creates meaning through the formal organization of the trees, a potent visual metaphor for the regimentation of labor. The image participates in a visual vocabulary that naturalizes colonial power through ostensibly objective observation. Research into the archives of the Dutch East India Company, as well as the history of photography, can reveal how photographs like these were used as promotional tools to attract investment in the region. They highlight the role of the historian in interpreting art.