Vrouw op een balkon in een stad te Japan before 1892

Curator: What immediately strikes me about this albumen print is its quiet intimacy; the soft tones lend a dreamlike quality to the scene. Editor: This is "Vrouw op een balkon in een stad te Japan," a photograph captured by William Kinnimond Burton sometime before 1892. We're looking at an image of an open book. The left page displays both text and a small, inset gelatin-silver print of a woman standing on a balcony. The page on the right side presents only typography and some faint spotting. Curator: Japonisme certainly comes to mind. Burton’s choice of subject—a woman framed within the architecture of what seems to be a traditional Japanese home overlooking the cityscape—reflects that era’s Western fascination with Japanese aesthetics. Do you feel this piece reproduces some exoticizing gaze of that era? Editor: It does carry those burdens, absolutely. As photography developed, it quickly became a tool of colonial projects and various power dynamics. Burton, as a Scottish engineer and photographer working in Japan, occupied a very specific position. But his work also offers insights into the cross-cultural dialogues and aesthetic exchanges of the late 19th century. His personal project exists as an intimate reflection of his engagement with Japan at this moment of transition. Curator: Absolutely. And look closely at the photograph's placement within the larger design of the book; It is almost like a snapshot lifted from a personal sketchbook, an individual moment memorialized amid a broader, unfolding narrative of typography and text. That personal lens gives it a particularly human feeling, resisting a one-dimensional projection. Editor: I agree, that inset adds another layer, offering space for introspection. Examining this work makes us confront the complexities of historical interpretation. Curator: It certainly pushes me to consider the various narratives we tell, the power dynamics at play when looking, and, moreover, to really ask critical questions of our own contemporary positioning.