Tabaksveld op het Bindjey Estate van de Deli-Batavia Maatschappij op Sumatra (80 dagen na aanplant) c. 1900 - 1920

This old photo shows a tobacco field on the Bindjey Estate of the Deli-Batavia Company in Sumatra, eighty days after planting. It’s anonymous, so we don’t know who took it or why, but the image really speaks to me. I imagine the photographer walking through the rows of plants, trying to capture the scale of the plantation, the workers, and the leaves that almost burst from the frame. It makes me think about the texture and color of the leaves, not in reality but in the abstraction of memory and thought. Imagine how it would be to try to translate that into a painting! Taking the photo, the photographer is in dialogue with others who have tried to do the same. Think of all the artists inspired by similar scenes, each trying to capture a specific moment in time. Photography, like painting, allows for multiple readings, shifting over time, and I wonder what the conversation will be like years from now, looking back at this image.