Door een aardbeving verwoeste huizen in Japan before 1892

Curator: Looking at this gelatin-silver print titled “Door een aardbeving verwoeste huizen in Japan”—Houses destroyed by an earthquake in Japan— it feels as though we're peering into a ghost world, a landscape ravaged. I believe this work originates from before 1892. Editor: My first impression? Ruin, pure and simple. A chaotic jumble of timber, thatch, and earth dominates the scene, with only a few figures visible amongst the rubble, which seem like they were just swept out. I can't help but think about the human cost involved. Curator: Absolutely. The composition is arresting, isn't it? There’s a beautiful light here, actually, which strikes me as an ethereal presence amidst devastation; light interacting with chaos. It speaks of resilience and life persisting. You also see details such as whole wooden frameworks of houses, shattered and lying across each other. There's a quiet grace, even in the aftermath. Editor: For me, the interest resides in the photograph's materiality. This isn't just about documenting an event, but also the choice of medium – gelatin-silver print. It highlights the industrial processes underpinning photographic production at that time and their social and labor implications. How the image circulated, for what purposes, by whom? These questions seem equally pressing to me. Were they perhaps consumed by an armchair audience in the West, craving Orientalist fantasies of a land brought to its knees? Curator: Perhaps, although I would suggest there's more happening. Look how the composition eschews sentimentality. The starkness avoids turning disaster into pure spectacle. Even the high vantage point gives us a sense of detached observation but also immense devastation. It strikes me more as observation than manipulation, personally, that there is truth being recorded and shared through a newer medium. Editor: Detached observation... I'm not entirely convinced. A Western gaze always informs these early photographs, and there would certainly have been some intention to shock, to elicit donations, or simply confirm a sense of European progress contrasted against what was construed as "natural" catastrophe striking elsewhere. This photo itself becomes a commodity, circulated, consumed, and used to serve specific economic and political ends. What kind of labor created these homes and whose hands sought to restore them? Curator: I respect your reading on the labor behind the image, though for me it's as if this captured moment possesses the power to teach resilience through visual language. Editor: Agreed, it shows how crucial it is to scrutinize those stories, recognizing the role the photographer played in documenting and giving us insight into this historical time, regardless of underlying motivations. It reminds us how important materials were in relaying a sense of place during disasters.