Kinderen en vee langs een spoorbaan in Nederlands-Indië 1912

Onnes Kurkdjian made this photograph, *Kinderen en vee langs een spoorbaan in Nederlands-Indië*, sometime during his career. It is a grayscale image of the Dutch East Indies that features children and cattle along a railway. I am thinking about what it must have been like for Kurkdjian, traveling around, taking these pictures, and what he was thinking. The black and white image is striking for its composition of natural elements and the new man-made tracks. The children are watching the railway and cattle. What do they think about this new landscape? Do they realize how much the railroad will transform their lives and the landscape around them? Did Kurkdjian consider how he was also transforming the landscape just by witnessing it? These are the kind of questions artists ask each other across time. As an artist myself, I find that the act of making helps me understand the world and my own place within it.