Straat in de Chinese Kamp in Padang met links het gebouw van 'Handel Maatschappij Kong Tjiang Loeng voor heen Ma A Sie' c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph, taken by Christiaan Benjamin Nieuwenhuis, shows a street in the Chinese quarter of Padang. It’s a sepia-toned world, kind of dreamy, the buildings lining the street like actors on a stage. Look at the texture, that almost palpable grit of the road, how it pulls your eye into the heart of the image. The way the light catches the building on the left, with the sign for the 'Handel Maatschappij Kong Tjiang Loeng', feels almost cinematic. There's something about the photograph as a medium, its capacity to freeze a moment, to turn the everyday into a kind of historical document, that feels very powerful here. Think about Eugène Atget, who documented the streets of Paris at the turn of the century. There's a similar desire to capture the world as it is, in all its messy, beautiful complexity. It reminds us that art is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between artists and the world around them.