Photography first reached the shores of Southeast Asia in the 19th century, brought by Europeans who used it to produce archives of landscapes and ethnographic studies. In the early 1900s, native ruling elites began using portraiture as a tool for propaganda, conveying their status in elegantly staged shots. Documentary images, conceptual work, and experiment came with the 20th century. This exhibition surveys 150 years of photography in the region. —Elena Clavarino