Man bezig met het uitplanten van kiemplanten (bibit) op de onderneming Soengei Tassik op Sumatra c. 1900 - 1920

This photograph was taken at an unknown date by an anonymous photographer, and it shows the planting of seedlings at the Soengei Tassik plantation in Sumatra. The composition is almost grid-like, in the way the rows of seedlings are laid out across the field. It makes me think about Agnes Martin, but also, well, literally, about planting. The rhythm of the marks made by hand as the workers push the seedlings into the ground. Look at the dark tones of the worker's clothing compared to the light shade of the fields, it's like the photo is tracing out an idea, a process, of bringing something out of the earth. As if the picture itself is a kind of gardening. Like a Harold Edgerton photograph where the process of mark making freezes a moment in time, the image remains open and suggestive; more a question than an answer.