Gezicht op de koffieplantage Blaukakan, Sumatra c. 1890 - 1900

Curator: This is an image titled "Gezicht op de koffieplantage Blaukakan, Sumatra" which translates to "View of the Blaukakan coffee plantation, Sumatra," dating back to around 1890-1900. It comes from the collection of the Rijksmuseum and is attributed to Heinrich Ernst & Co. Editor: The overall mood is dreamy but with an undercurrent of something else...The sepia tone gives it a faded memory feel, but those neat rows, the people at work, the railroad track...It feels incredibly calculated. Curator: Indeed. As an example of Orientalist photography, it invites us to think about how the colonial gaze shapes representation. What narratives are being constructed here about labor, land, and ownership in Sumatra at the turn of the century? Editor: It's that tension that gets me! At first glance, a romantic vista. But linger a little, and the carefully positioned figures start feeling less picturesque, more...placed. Is it meant to showcase the idyllic productivity? Or something more sinister? Curator: The figures, arranged seemingly at regular intervals across the landscape, become markers of that system of production, revealing the extent to which every aspect of this vista has been designed and controlled. Editor: I’m struck by the scale. The way the photographer uses depth—the misty hills behind. Makes the plantation feel almost limitless. Did they feel powerful standing there documenting this vista, so different than anything they may have ever seen? I wonder how aware they were of their own hand in all of this. Curator: It’s also important to analyze what isn’t shown, what perspectives are being silenced. We are presented with the European perspective, which is designed to obscure more than it reveals about local workers’ experience. We are only ever provided glimpses of people laboring without recognition or detail. Editor: The history soaked into this photograph… the human cost of coffee. Sometimes art isn’t beautiful, sometimes art reminds us we still have work to do, myself included. Curator: Exactly. The photograph invites a questioning of the unequal power structures that allowed such landscapes, such documentation to exist in the first place, continuing legacies and still very current exploitations. Editor: I think I need a cup of tea instead of coffee now. Thanks for the history lesson, much appreciated.