TOWARD INDEPENDENCE
A Century of Indonesia Photographed
The Indonesian archipelago is a vast complex of islands, languages, and cultures -- all coexisting in a variety of expressions and overlays. Moreover, the nation's social structures are inextricably bound to religious beliefs and practices, a milieu unfamiliar to modern secular Western sensibilities. The photographs in this book chronicle a significant one-hundred-year era in the lengthy transformation of Indonesia from its Dutch colonial occupation, which began in the 1500's, to its emergence as an independent nation in 1945. While historical in nature, the exhibition was meant to carry forward and symbolize the strength and spirit of the Indonesian people, and to inspire us all to understand better the complex social and cultural issues facing the country today.
Of the several thousand images considered, some of the finest were found in forgotten country attics, family albums, dusty Dutch museum drawers, and the archives of Magnum photography.
Ten photographers are represented throughout the decades, including Adolph Shaefer's exquisite daguerreotypes in the 1840s; photographs from the 1920's by Tilly Weisenborn, one of the few woman photographers of her time; Tassilo Adams ethnographic photographs of the Batak people; Walter Spies 1930’s dramatic images of performance and cultural rituals; and finally, taken with his decisive eye, Henri Cartier- Bresson's photographs of the evacuation of the Dutch and the evolution of the country as an independent nation.
Even those people familiar with Indonesian culture will find surprises in the work of the photographers presented here -- surprises based on the revelation of unexpected details, the candor of the subjects, and the placement of the images in the context of this collection of essays, stories, interviews, and poems assembled by editor Jane Levy Reed. Behind the obvious beauty of the subjects of these photographs lies the complexity of the theme under which they were originally gathered: toward independence.
Woodbury and Page, Group of Bettawi, the original inhabitants of Batavia, 1860-1870; Henri Cartier-Bresson, Painting of a Dutch Governor being carried out of the Batavia palace before celebrations for the newly recognized Republic of Indonesia, 1949
©1991 Leo Haks Rare Books, Amsterdam; ©1991 Magnum Photos - All Rights Reserved
0.5 x 8 x 12 inches
120 pages
Paperback
ISBN-10: 0933286589
ISBN-13: 978-0933286580
edited by Jane Levy Reed
Published by Ansel Adams Center, Friends of Photography
$40