Fotoalbum van de Tijgerbrigade op Midden-Java, 1947-1950 1947 - 1950

Curator: What an unassuming object! This is a photo album, documenting the 'Tijgerbrigade' or 'Tiger Brigade' during their deployment to Midden-Java, between 1947 and 1950. It’s a collection of albumen prints and even some photographs enhanced with coloured pencil. Editor: The cover is intensely plain. Brown. Functional. Almost like military-issue anything. I’m drawn to the little tassle detail—is that original, or was it added later? I’m immediately thinking about the human labor involved. Someone bound this, collected these prints. What was their job? Curator: You’re right; it’s deliberately unfussy. I think that simplicity speaks to the moment—the chaos of a post-colonial conflict, distilled into a series of captured images. These photos weren't meant for display in gilded frames, but to chronicle events, to be carried, shown to someone on leave perhaps. There’s intimacy. Editor: Intimacy produced in factories, perhaps! Look at the texture of the cover, seemingly mass-produced "leather," that isn't exactly. The labor involved in manufacturing something that imitates high-end artistry points to the accessibility of photography during that time and mass industrialization. I see its deceptive face here. Curator: And yet, what survives! Think of the chemicals, the precise conditions necessary for each print, for that modest tassel even. These are inherently fragile records – memories clinging to paper. Perhaps the understated presentation actually protected these images. There is tension in what they chose to remember, but maybe what has survived unintentionally and without planning is more compelling Editor: Definitely—that contrast intrigues me too. There's a compelling tension in how readily this album might fade into any pile of mundane documents and at the same time has a tangible tactile presence of something to be remembered by its owner, to touch and behold and, possibly in this digital moment, to feel a world away from. Curator: Ultimately, it's an imperfect object bearing witness to a fractured past. I find that poignant and compelling