Roeiboot met leerlingen van Schloss Spetzgart, nevenvestiging van Schule Schloss Salem, op het Bodenmeer c. 1929

Editor: Here we have a photograph from around 1929, showing a rowboat filled with students on Lake Constance – or the Bodenmeer, as it's also known. It's so grainy; it almost looks like a pencil drawing! It feels serene, almost dreamlike, yet the students seem quite focused on their rowing. What's your take on this image? Curator: I see this photograph as a fascinating document of labor and social conditioning. Look at the boat itself – the product of skilled craftsmanship, specifically designed for a purpose, to instill discipline. And the matching clothing...how does the very act of dressing these children similarly contribute to a sense of enforced uniformity within a social class structure? Editor: That’s interesting, I hadn’t considered the boat itself as such a key element. Curator: Think about it - the boat is the site of physical exertion and implicitly, of social maneuvering. Rowing in sync, all those moving parts—what is the process of production of this image, what can we interpret? Do the uniforms erase individual identities? What labor goes unseen in the pursuit of this carefully constructed image of leisure and education? Editor: I guess I was more focused on the aesthetic qualities rather than the, kind of, mechanics and societal context within which this boat scene existed. I’ll definitely look closer next time! Curator: Precisely. The materiality and modes of production in both the boat itself and this photographic representation thereof are equally key to a complete analysis.