Woonhuis van de Plantage Accaribo 1913 - 1930

This is "Woonhuis van de Plantage Accaribo" by Theodoor Brouwers, a small photograph, likely a study or a record of a place, made sometime between 1875 and 1932. It’s all in shades of gray, as if the world has been muted, turned down, and this lends it a strange kind of intensity. The image shows a house with a person standing by the gate. Everything's a bit faded, a little blurry, which to me makes the whole thing seem more real, like a memory. It’s about texture here, the roughness of the wood, the grainy sky. The person is almost ghostlike, and hard to make out, which is kind of beautiful in a melancholic way. It reminds me a bit of Eugène Atget’s photographs of Paris – capturing something before it disappears. Art is all about time, change, and how we see what's right in front of us.