With more than forty staged photos, original diary excerpts, and a rare personal perspective, the photo series ‘My Dearest Teun,’ offers a poignant glimpse into daily life in the Japanese women’s camp Tjideng in the former Dutch East Indies. The series is based on the story of Tahné’s grandmother, Pieta Kleijn, who gave birth to her first child, Ton, during her internment. In the camp, which was known for its deplorable conditions, the baby grew up without medical care, with insufficient food, and under the constant supervision of the Japanese occupiers.
Between fear and the will to survive, Pieta wrote two diaries and a baby book at great personal risk to share with her husband—who knew nothing of his son’s existence—the young life that was beginning without him. “My grandmother was no hero, no resistance fighter. She was a young mother trying to survive,” says Tahné Kleijn. “But it is precisely in her vulnerability and honesty that the strength of this story lies. With *Mijn Liefste Teun*, I want to break the silence that so many with a history in Indonesia have grown up with.”
The photo series makes the stories from the women’s camp tangible and relatable through a combination of historical research, personal family archives, and carefully styled photography. The result is an impressive visual narrative in which the past and present merge. Kleijn is not only the photographer but also plays the lead roles in the series together with her two children.