Drie Korewah mannen met pijl-en-boog uit Chota Nagpur before 1868

Editor: Right, next up, we have a photograph taken before 1868 by Benjamin Simpson, entitled 'Drie Korewah mannen met pijl-en-boog uit Chota Nagpur' – Three Korewah Men with Bow and Arrow from Chota Nagpur. It's fascinating to see this image so early in the history of photography, this window into a different time and place. What’s your read of the piece? Curator: It speaks volumes, doesn't it? I’m struck by the composition. They seem posed, perhaps, but there’s a vulnerability there, a directness in their gazes that feels profoundly human. And the light…it almost sculpts them, highlighting the textures of their skin, their bows. It's as if the light itself is telling a story. I wonder, do you get a sense of performance versus documentation? Does this image attempt to freeze and capture the cultural essence or the daily life? Editor: That's interesting. It definitely feels… curated, for lack of a better word. Like it’s performing *something*. Maybe a cultural artifact to be displayed and studied? Curator: Precisely. Early photography was often used as a tool of colonial documentation, wasn’t it? Images were brought back and interpreted in the Western world. It does pose a dilemma: is it capturing the men's cultural identities, or objectifying them? What stories might these men have told about the image being created of them? Editor: I never really thought about that power dynamic when looking at older photographs, but that context really shifts things. Curator: Indeed. Every photograph, really every artwork, is a dialogue – a conversation between the artist, the subject, the viewer, and the world around it. Hopefully this gave us a better angle! Editor: Definitely! It really brings into focus the complexities behind this early photograph and prompts a different type of questioning.