Ideaalbeelden van het onderwijs in koloniaal Suriname. Hoe een foto meer kan tonen dan de maker bedoeld heeft.

Samenvatting

I look at the photograph in Augusta Curiel, Photographer in Suriname 1904-1937, a comprehensive book published in 2007 with a representative selection of the work of Curiel, the most important Surinamese photographer of her time, and her sister. All the work was commissioned, and this is the first presentation of the oeuvre as a whole. The apparent ordinariness of this school photo is what intrigues me. What is striking is that we only know two people by name: two white Dutch people in a multi-ethnic group of otherwise anonymous children and teachers. The photo and the information provided create a hierarchy. Photography does not show reality, but orders it. Education does the same. I am interested in how two lines converge here: education and photography as instruments within a colonial hierarchy. What role did the photograph, as an image carrier, as a physical object, play in propagating a social order? And what does the photograph do now, now that we no longer believe in the worldview it embodies?