Portret van twee onbekende jonge vrouwen op Pagai in de dracht van het eiland 1891 - 1912

This is a photograph by Christiaan Benjamin Nieuwenhuis of two young women, probably made in the late 19th or early 20th century. The sepia tones make it feel like a document, but I think there's more going on than just recording what things looked like back then. I’m really drawn to how the women are adorned with what’s around them - necklaces, headpieces, and skirts made from natural materials. Look at the woman on the right, she’s wearing this incredible hat with sharp angles which mirror the sharp edges of the leaves in her skirt. It's like she's wearing the landscape. The way the image captures the texture of the woven materials and the women's skin gives it such a tactile quality. For me, the power of this image lies in its ambiguity, in the way it straddles the line between being a record of a specific time and place, and an artistic statement about the relationship between people and their environment. It reminds me of some of the portrait work by Maud Sulter. Both challenge our understanding of the genre.