Tabaksveld op het Bindjey Estate van de Deli-Batavia Maatschappij op Sumatra (40 dagen na aanplant) c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph of a tobacco field on the Bindjey Estate in Sumatra was taken by an anonymous photographer. It's about control, about the imposition of a certain way of seeing on the land. The neat rows, the two figures standing stiffly in their white suits, it's all very formal, very posed. But look closer at the leaves, how they spill over the edges of the rows, unruly and alive. The contrast between the wildness of the plants and the order imposed by the planters is palpable. It reminds me of a painting by Gustave Caillebotte, maybe "The Floor Scrapers", where you can feel the tension between labor and the aesthetic framing of that labor. Art, like agriculture, can be about imposing order, but the best art always acknowledges the chaos and messiness underneath. It’s an ongoing conversation, a push and pull, between what we want to control and what refuses to be tamed.