Jachtgezelschap bij boom op plantage Accaribo 1911 - 1932

Curator: Looking at this vintage photograph, it’s titled "Jachtgezelschap bij boom op plantage Accaribo," which translates to Hunting party by a tree on the Accaribo plantation. It’s undated, created sometime between 1911 and 1932, and currently residing at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Immediately, it gives me this overwhelming sense of colonial ambition. The photograph has this quiet intensity, almost like a posed tableau vivant, the massive tree like the focal point in a Baroque painting. It almost makes a virtue of its sepia tone. Curator: Absolutely, there is a calculated air, the hunting party positioned quite deliberately around the tree, like they are staging a portrait for posterity. And what do you read in that grand old tree? Editor: Well, it strikes me as a powerful symbol of rootedness, a sentinel overseeing this landscape of exploitation. But there's a twist—its dominance is undermined by the figures surrounding it, claiming their temporary power in the space. What do the figures tell you? Curator: They almost melt into the surrounding texture and rugged bark; that almost makes them one and the same to the environment. You’ve got them standing proudly with rifles – the emblems of hunting – as men pose upon boulders. Almost theatrical. The composition feels as staged as a Renaissance painting. Editor: Right, these characters feel like they were placed together in an act of authority. I see something both powerful and pathetic in that image. Their guns, their formal dress, and the composition screams of trying too hard to project an aura of colonial control. It hints at a fragility in the power they assert. Curator: That makes perfect sense. It makes me reflect on photography of that time as a whole: often, these photographic subjects were never shown in control. In our image however, they use composition to control. Fascinating. Editor: Exactly! And that’s where the photograph transcends its subject and becomes a symbolic mirror reflecting not only colonial power, but the anxieties and artificiality underpinning it all. Makes you wonder what the Accaribo plantation workers made of this odd bunch in the forest! Curator: An astute observation. I will certainly carry that with me.