S.O. Goenoengsari. Ketels. 5-4-1927. 1927

This photograph of ‘S.O. Goenoengsari. Ketels’ was taken on April 5, 1927, by an anonymous photographer. It depicts a sugar factory in Java, part of the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. We see the imposing boilers, or ‘ketels’, under construction, framed by the factory's steel infrastructure. The image speaks to the industrial ambitions of the Dutch colonial project and its heavy reliance on natural resources extracted from Java. The sugar industry was a major source of revenue for the Dutch, and the factory, an institution in itself, becomes a symbol of colonial power. Looking at the image, consider the unacknowledged labour required to build this factory and to operate these boilers. Researching sources from the colonial archives helps us understand the social conditions of workers in these factories, and to appreciate the human cost of sugar production.