Leprozenkolonie Danaradja: patiënten 1922

These three photographs of patients at the Leprozenkolonie Danaradja are by an anonymous artist, and we don’t know when they were made. But look at them; they are like windows opening up to the world. I like to think about the process of making these photographs. The light-sensitive paper, the chemical baths, the patient hands that must have worked to create them. The surface is distressed, cracked, and faded, which is like a metaphor for the lives of the people it depicts. I keep returning to the lower image of a child squatting on the ground with a pile of things. The child has a blank look on their face. What are they doing, what are they thinking, what can we know? This part is what makes the image so evocative for me. These photographs remind me a little of August Sander’s portraits of people in 1920’s Germany: both share a sense of detachment. What do you make of them?