Doos horend bij een bronzen penning 1889

Curator: The work before us, captured in 1889 by François Ignace Baetes, is entitled 'Doos horend bij een bronzen penning' which translates to 'Box belonging to a bronze medal,' rendered through photography. Editor: The stark emptiness really strikes me. It feels almost… forlorn. A box presented on its own like this; it evokes questions about absence. What did it contain, and where is that object now? Curator: Absolutely. The photograph freezes this box in time, prompting considerations about the systems of value around medals as rewards for merit. What does the presence of this box and absence of its object, tell us about the history of medal production in 1889 and what it meant in broader narratives of colonial achievement? Editor: That’s a powerful reading. Thinking materially, the texture and construction are pretty basic: the cardboard with simple banded decoration. One assumes the medal it once held was of far greater material and perhaps cultural worth. Did the value really reside in the bronze penning, or in the labor of its production and the recognition it symbolized? Curator: Precisely! What is presented as valued – a commemorative bronze – is dependent on exploited material, labor, and a very constructed vision of society. As Walter Benjamin said, ‘there is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.’ Editor: So, what appeared celebratory and signifying accomplishment, through Baetes’ lens becomes somewhat elegiac. I keep thinking about the loss of that medal from its designated place; the box suddenly shifts from simply being a storage object, to standing as an open frame of social history, labor, and empire. Curator: Indeed, and by acknowledging this photographic portrayal, the medium becomes integral in exploring those difficult questions of cultural visibility that demand that we reflect upon them in the contemporary moment. Editor: Ultimately, I now look at this object with a different lens. Thank you. Curator: The pleasure was mine.