Huizen 1890 - 1910

Otto Hisgen's photograph, "Huizen," captures a building, likely in the Dutch East Indies, with its distinctive colonial architecture. Hisgen, born in 1874, lived through a period of intense colonial expansion, and this photograph is inevitably entangled with the power dynamics of that era. The image presents a neat, orderly facade, characteristic of colonial efforts to impose European aesthetics and systems of governance. But what does this image say about the lives of the people who inhabited or were affected by these spaces? Hisgen's photograph invites us to consider the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Photographs like this one played a role in shaping perceptions of the Dutch East Indies and the cultural narratives of the time. It is a reminder of how photography can both reveal and conceal, emphasizing certain narratives while obscuring others. "Huizen" is therefore more than just a photograph of a building; it is a lens through which we can examine the complexities of colonial history.