Opening a home for Chinese girls at Goenoeng Sari 41, Batavia, in the presence of Mrs Van Limburg Stirum (centre), the wife of the Governor- General

No other sub-collection in the Tropenmuseum’s photograph collection is so deeply entwined with colonial society as the one that was transferred to the Tropenmuseum by the Indo Scientific Institute (Indisch
Wetenschappelijk Instituut, IWI) in 2005. This collection originated with the founding of the Tong Tong Foundation in 1957 by Jan Boon (1911–74), a journalist and author who used the pen names Tjalie Robinson and Vincent Mahieu. Born in Nijmegen of an Indo- European mother and a Dutch KNIL officer, Jan Boon grew up in Indonesia. After Indonesia’s independence circumstances compelled him to move to the Netherlands in 1954, where he worked as a journalist and author. He was particularly interested in ‘Tropical Hollanders’ (‘Tropen Nederlanders‘) for whom he founded the magazine Tong Tong in 1958, which he used as a platform for the Indo-European group in Dutch society. He asked his readers to send him personal stories, experiences and photographs, an appeal that met with a huge response. After Jan Boon died, his widow Lilian Ducelle continued the magazine; it was renamed Moesson in 1978. Most of the letters that were sent in were not preserved, but a lot of the visual material was, some of which formed the Moesson images archive.

In 1984 another part was transferred to the Indies Scientific Institute, which was founded by Ducelle and Ralph Boekholt. The IWI would become an efficient scientific institute that collected and preserved
photographs, films, books and other objects that were brought together by the Indo-European target group. In 2005 the photograph collection was digitised and then transferred to the Tropenmuseum, where the almost 70,000 photographs form a vast addition to the existing collection of family albums.

What makes the IWI photograph collection so special is its emphasis on material that was made from the 1910s to the mid- 1950 by amateur photographers who frequently photographed their own, often domestic, environments. It mostly comprises Indo-European family albums with group portraits, children, parties, outings, offices, interiors, orchids and dogs. These often-cheerful photographs provide unique and intimate
glimpses of Colonial society, but what they exclude also says a lot!

Mansfeld, A. The IWI collection. In: Photographs of the Netherlands East Indies at the Tropenmuseum. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2012, p.58

Gift: Indo Scientific Institute (IWI), 2006
12,3 x 17,1cm (4 13/16 x 6 3/4in.)

Source: collectie.tropenmuseum.nl