Gezicht op een stad met dakterrassen, mogelijk Tétouan c. 1880 - 1910

Curator: The work before us is titled “Gezicht op een stad met dakterrassen, mogelijk Tétouan,” or “View of a city with roof terraces, possibly Tetouan," dating from somewhere between 1880 and 1910. It's a gelatin-silver print by Antonio Cavilla. Editor: My first thought is just... expanse. The city seems to sprawl forever under the watch of that mountain in the background, and there's something so still, so quiet, about it. Almost lonely. Curator: The monochrome palette definitely amplifies that stillness. In photography of this era, we often see an embrace of pictorialism alongside an orientalist gaze. It's easy to see those influences here in Cavilla's work. The flat rooftops, the austere architecture... they evoke a very particular kind of otherness. Editor: Otherness, absolutely. But I also find myself drawn to the human element... or the implied human element. You imagine people living in these buildings, gathering on the roofs. And that brings in a sort of dreamy warmth, you know? Like glimpsing someone else’s memory. Curator: That sense of memory is critical to interpreting orientalist images. They often capture a constructed image of the past, one filled with romantic ideals and perhaps some willful misinterpretations. Editor: Do you think Cavilla was conscious of constructing that image, or do you think he just saw beauty in what was around him? I wonder, as someone with an intuitive feel for the process, about the sheer practical considerations back then: composing the shot, light... Did those practical elements unconsciously contribute to that "constructed image"? Curator: The act of selection always involves a degree of construction, doesn't it? We are both the mirrors and the makers of our images. Editor: Well said. It’s this interesting push-pull then...a push towards an exoticised ‘other’, a pull towards lived, tangible realities. So where does that leave us when approaching a work like this today? Curator: Aware. Aware that images carry inheritances, encoded long before and persisting long after the moment of their creation. Editor: Haunting. Makes you want to linger. Curator: Indeed. A lasting image, no doubt.