Tabaksveld op het Bindjey Estate van de Deli-Batavia Maatschappij op Sumatra (40 dagen na aanplant) c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph, "Tabaksveld op het Bindjey Estate van de Deli-Batavia Maatschappij op Sumatra (40 dagen na aanplant)," probably was made with a large format camera, giving it incredible detail. I can imagine the photographer, whoever they were, setting up the shot, maybe frustrated by the light or the relentless heat. But something made them want to record this scene – the rows and rows of tobacco plants, like brushstrokes across the land. It reminds me of Agnes Martin's grids, yet the hand of nature is here, and of course the hand of man, staking out this landscape. There's something so beautiful and so awful about the image. Beauty in the composition, the way the land slopes and the building sits on top of the hill. Awful in what it represents, the colonial exploitation of the land and its people. It reminds me that artists don’t work in a vacuum. We respond to what we see, what we feel, and what we know about the world, and try to make sense of it all through our work.