Blad 126 uit Stamboek van de leerlingen der Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage deel II (1930-1949) Possibly 1940 - 1941

This page, 126 from the register of students at the Colonial School for Girls and Women in The Hague, is a ready-made drawing in itself. Imagine the hand that made this page. The labor of production – the slow accumulation of detail and the accumulation of these books is just an amazing archive. I can imagine how the person who made this page was trying to create something regular but the handwriting and signatures are still individual, they break the grid. Each square on this page represents a person with their own story. The photos are like small windows, little glimpses into the lives of the women who attended this school. The signatures feel deeply personal, a mark of identity, and a trace of the hand. It is a unique form of portraiture that we find across painting. Think of the flow and pressure that the pen created and the personal story that it tells.