Europese leidinggevende of eigenaar van plantage en Aziatische arbeider tussen zaadbomen van tabaksplantage Boeloe Tjina op Sumatra c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph shows a European manager and an Asian laborer standing among seed trees on the Boeloe Tjina tobacco plantation on Sumatra. Although the artist is unknown, I bet that they witnessed or heard stories about this interaction and felt compelled to document what they saw. I wonder what it was like to stand in the fields, watching this scene unfold? The photographer would have been struck by the different ways the European manager and the Asian laborer moved and held themselves, and how their bodies were shaped by their different experiences. The image is about how different people exist together in the same space and how uneven those differences can be. In our moment of seeing, we can try to see and feel from the perspective of the European manager, the Asian laborer, the land itself, or the photographer, each offering different ways of seeing and experiencing the world.