Blad 79 uit Stamboek van de leerlingen der Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage deel I (1921-1929) Possibly 1928

This page, Blad 79, comes from a student register made in the 1920s at the Colonial School for Girls and Women in the Hague. It's basically a spreadsheet filled out by hand! I love the fact that data from the past wasn’t just numbers and facts, but also handwriting, personality, you know? Check out the columns and lines created with ink, probably using a ruler. The ink has a kind of dark, shiny surface. The handwritten information is arranged in very straight lines, and the actual handwriting looks super different from one another. One entry is rounded, another is sharp, another is full of flourish. It is so cool to think that each one of these different styles represents an individual! For me, a page like this is all about the relationship between structure and freedom, a mix of social control and personal expression. Think of it like Agnes Martin’s grids, or even Cy Twombly’s scrawls – it's all about the poetry of the everyday. I’m thinking about how artists like Moyra Davey and Zoe Leonard use the archive in their works. Art’s just an ongoing conversation, right? Always questioning, always reinterpreting.