[Banian Tree] 1850s

Curator: What a grand dame. The photograph "Banian Tree", taken in the 1850s by Captain R. B. Hill, just exhales timelessness, doesn't it? The light itself seems like memory made visible. Editor: It has a solemn, almost melancholic air, certainly. The sepia tones evoke the weight of history, colonialism, the visual construction of landscape, nature. I’m thinking a lot about empire. Curator: Right. Colonial-era photography…often framing exoticized “views.” But there's also a stillness here, almost reverential. The Banian, a sacred tree, given this vast space, made the clear subject, dignified in portraiture. Editor: The way the light catches the leaves does give it a halo effect. But is it celebratory or simply appropriative? The photographic medium itself, think about how it was being used then to catalogue and possess the colonial territory. Curator: I agree with caution. It's not a simple pretty picture. And I'm sure Hill had agendas. Still, something compels me. Look at the roots—how they grip the earth. The canopy so open, expansive. It seems like the tree *becomes* the land itself. A goddess maybe, refusing to be categorized. Editor: Refusing *because* of categorization. Trees are living archives— silent witnesses to histories of displacement, resistance, adaptation. Think about indigenous knowledge, erasure. What stories would this tree tell if it could speak beyond aesthetics? Curator: True, it *is* a complex relationship. Looking closely though… There's a kind of resilience, even joy in those reaching branches. Editor: Perhaps. And as custodians, our task is to unearth, to question, not just what’s seen but what the silence conceals, always aware of power dynamics and whose story is framed and whose is obscured. Curator: So well said! It's why conversations about photographs like this never truly end, because the story continues to unfold. The "Banian Tree" becomes, itself, an opening. Editor: Exactly.