Gezicht op een lagune bij Fulaga before 1899

This monochrome photograph shows a view of the lagoon at Fulanga, one of the Fiji Islands. The image appears to be a plate from a book or journal, which tells us something about the institutional context that frames the image. Fulanga is a raised coral atoll, and this photograph of it offers us insight into both the geography and the colonial history of the island. Fiji was a British colony at the time, and such images of its landscape would likely have been produced for scientific or administrative purposes. They may also have been intended to promote Fiji as a site of colonial expansion. The photograph’s aesthetic value is inseparable from its socio-political function. We can gain further insights by researching the colonial history of Fiji. By studying the journals and reports of colonial administrators, we can better understand this image and the place it occupied in the history of imperial expansion.