KLM-medewerkers c. 1925 - 1935

Curator: This gelatin-silver print, dating from about 1925 to 1935, is called "KLM-medewerkers," meaning KLM Employees. Editor: It's fascinating; it feels almost like a deconstructed family album, these fragments of photographs arranged…almost casually? Curator: Well, given its format, the artist, who remains anonymous, seems interested in the idea of cataloging, of ordering different scenes into a new relationship. We can appreciate how they've worked with gelatin-silver-print for this particular medium and texture. Editor: It does remind me a bit of those Victorian mourning brooches that incorporated fragments of hair – tiny mementos locked together to conjure a lost presence. Do you get a sense of how air travel held iconic weight then, promising a future previously unimaginable? Curator: Definitely. The material reality here, though, intrigues me. Look at the sharp contrast achieved with the gelatin-silver process and the effect it has overall. Photography here allows a very real and reproducible method that speaks to broader issues of access. We get insight into how people are participating in that technological and social change. Editor: You are right. But beyond documentation, KLM itself becomes an emblem – those photos showing a map, for example. It feels like the aspiration for connection over distance—humanity reaching out. This new corporate image had power; you see how carefully these workers are presented. There’s this distinct optimism, presented through these specific photos within photos. Curator: True, and let’s not ignore the impact of the choice of printing methods on their reception. Gelatin-silver-prints make these easily disseminated, and thus accessible to consumers—KLM, as a result, created a broader customer base while being at the same time responsible for their representation through reproducible medium like photography. Editor: It speaks to an almost mythical vision of what air travel was coming to mean, especially juxtaposed the arrangement itself; It also offers something of their own professional mythology. Very striking how they arranged these images, the light book sitting on top of the photographs. What do you suppose it represents? Curator: An archive, literally layering the historical. The labor of memory is physically represented! I have to consider the artist's position on representing not just the worker in this piece but how those methods themselves help to distribute and represent them broadly! Editor: Thinking about how visual icons can speak across time has opened up interesting questions for me today; Thanks for pointing out to them!