Gezicht op de ruïnes van Goenoeng Sari before 1897

Editor: So this is "Gezicht op de ruïnes van Goenoeng Sari," a photograph by Christiaan Johan Neeb, sometime before 1897. It looks like an albumen print, depicting temple ruins overtaken by vegetation. It seems…romantic, in a ruinous way. What stands out to you? Curator: What’s fascinating to me is the albumen print itself. Think about the labor involved. Egg whites, meticulously applied to paper to create that glossy surface, receptive to the chemical magic of the darkroom. The process demands control, and speaks volumes about the relationship between colonizer and colonized in 19th century orientalism. The sheen of the print aestheticizes the ruin, consuming the ‘exotic’ landscape as a luxury good. Editor: I hadn't considered the actual material and its production having so much to say! Does the albumen printing process, then, impose a specific lens through which these ruins are viewed? Curator: Precisely! The choice isn't neutral. Albumen prints, despite their crisp detail, fade. It brings questions about permanence, documentation, and the very act of recording another culture through a foreign lens. We must ask ourselves how it transformed Southeast Asian visual culture, and how its consumption played into imperial economies of extraction. Who did it serve, and at what cost? Editor: So by looking at the process, and the materials, we can unearth deeper social and cultural contexts that go beyond just the image itself. I will look at photographs differently now. Curator: Indeed. Thinking about the labor behind even seemingly simple materials allows us to deconstruct narratives and understand power dynamics that underpin art.