Aanleg van een rubberplantage van de Deli Maatschappij bij Soengei Tassik op Sumatra c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph, of a rubber plantation being built by the Deli Company near Soengei Tassik on Sumatra, shows the kind of mark-making that is devastating. You see all the strokes, the hacked out stumps, and the land cleared for industry. You can see the path the workers will take. It's interesting to imagine the person who took this photograph; were they an employee of the company? Did they sympathize with the destruction of nature that the image records? What were they thinking when they snapped the picture? The tonal range is so subtle. It reminds you how every gesture is part of a conversation, and how artists continue to build on one another's work. It is a difficult image. You hope the photographer's work prompts some awareness of the cost of this kind of mark making.