De trap van de Candi Panataran gezien vanaf de westzijde. Possibly 1867

Isidore Kinsbergen captured ‘The Stairs of Candi Panataran Seen from the West Side’ with photography during his time in the Dutch East Indies. Born in the Netherlands, Kinsbergen was an actor who became the royal photographer for the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, around the time that photography was used as a tool of colonial administration. This image depicts a significant religious complex in Java, reflecting the colonial gaze of the time. We see detailed stonework and headless statues, remnants of a rich cultural history, yet presented through the lens of European documentation. Consider the act of photographing itself; who gets to represent whom, and how? The image makes me wonder about the voices and perspectives absent from this colonial archive. What stories do these stones hold, and how do they differ from the narrative Kinsbergen’s photograph implies?