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| Photographed Testimony | | | “The fundamental movement of modern timesconsists in conquering the world-as-picture"
Martin Heidegger
The forest fire on the Carmel Range took place after the final deadline for submission of photographs to the 2010 Local Testimony competition. Not being able to include photos of this event aroused a sense of missing out. The small number of photographs of the fire in this year’s exhibit is a reverberation of last year’s massive media covering. The same sense of frustration is present this year when the photographs of Gilad Shalit’s return from Hamas captivity could not be submitted to the competition. It seems that the “social justice” protest did well, for it is well represented in the exhibit.
This year, 8,000 press photographs were submitted according to predefined categories, with the objective of enabling maximal coverage of the events of the past year.
The photographs in the exhibit have a different presence than they had in the original. The photographs were enlarged and a new context created – both content-related and visual. The enlargement grants the press photo a new and additional exposure. Every photograph has a size conducive to maximal visibility. The new physical presence stresses details and characteristics that were not underscored in the original. The enlargement is dependent on both the original context and on the new, independent one. The way in which the photograph is exhibited, its size and qualities, all dictate different ways of viewing, which have been enhanced thanks to the digital age.
Ilia Yefimovich’s photograph of the year, and Ziv Koren’s “The Nachsa Day Riots,” exemplify different ways of reading. In the first, the drama takes place in the center of the frame, near the photographer. The composition intensifies and underpins the event at a decisive moment, enabling the viewer to absorb information at a glance. The second cuts out a piece of the landscape and a wide-ranging event, rich in detail. The photographer’s position, far from the arena of events, builds a flat and uniform composition. The eye of the beholder wanders among the images that are equally scattered over the entire photograph, which comprises both the complete event and the happenings and images that construct it.
Press photography is one of the journalistic practices that creates images with the objective of telling a news story. The number of images that modern media currently transmits, seemingly builds an ever-increasing database of a historical photographic archive. However, work on this exhibit shows that an artificial attempt to produce a sequence of images that will breathe life into the events of the past year does not pass the reality test. In other words, foremost events are thoroughly reviewed as they transpire, which prompts the illusion that the event is etched on our memory. However, the media’s attempt to attract maximal attention to all events ultimately makes us forget, and does not enable the creation of a contemporary and hierarchal historical sequence.
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| | Statement-exhibit: The Summer 2011 Tent City Protest | | | The social protest of the summer of 2011 engulfed large parts of the population, which is verified by the numerous photos submitted to the competition. This echoes the momentum of the occurrence that began on July 14, 2011, following the event created the previous week on Facebook by Dafni Lif and others.
In the second half of the 20th century, the liberal ethos, which places the individual at the core of existence, took a central and almost exclusive place in Western culture. The development of the Internet constituted an essential component in this process due to its capacity to offer individuals a platform upon which they can express their opinions and desires.
The protest quickly spread throughout the country. Thousands set up protest tents, demonstrated in the city streets and squares, and visited the tent city in order to closely feel the power of the protest. The choice of a tent, a basic shelter, seeks to underscore the temporariness and vulnerability of the structure and those living within it, in stark contrast with the long-lasting nature of a permanent home which grants its inhabitants a sense of stability and security. And indeed, the use of tents for residential purposes in city centers as a way of protesting is noticeable throughout the world. In Spain, for example, tents were pitched as a protest against the high cost of residential quarters as early as the spring of 2011.
News events are usually reported and mediated by the different media to a large audience, which sits passively, and its involvement is by and large limited to viewing. In the “tent city protest” many people actively experienced the events, either by visiting the location or by viewing individual and other photographs published in the various media.
The three winning series relate to the protest from several perspectives. Each photographer tells the story of the protest in his own way.
Nitzan Hafner’s black-and-white photographs underscore the intensity of the event, the crowdedness and the energies it generated. The series presents all the different elements that composed the protest – tents, demonstrations, marches – and also focuses on specific events, such as the detentions and confrontations.
Hafner’s spectrum of colors shifts from dark gray to total black. The compositions are dense, closed, intensifying the drama.
Yuval Tebol chose to set up a makeshift studio on Rothschild Boulevard and take pictures of the protest leaders. The portraits are photographed against a black background, in uniform monochrome colors. The people look directly and resolutely into the lens, meeting the viewer at eye level. The physical proximity of the photographer and his subjects creates an intimacy between the young leaders and the spectators, underscoring the fact that the protest belongs “to all of us.”
Kobi Wolf’s series highlights the process of transforming public space into a private one. Those photographed in their sleep are vulnerable as they are exposed on the boulevard which Is unable to protect them. The moderate colors, the uniform light conditions, and the body language of the subjects intensify the intimate condition of sleeping in public.
I decided to add several photos of past protest tents to the winning series, photos which have been etched on Israel’s collective memory. A housing shortage in 1990 followed the massive immigration from the former Soviet Union, and tents sprang up throughout Israel. In 2002, Yisrael Twito led a protest of homeless people. He set up an encampment in Kikar Hamedinah and changed the square’s name to Kikar Halechem (Bread Square). In a different context, in 2010 the Shalit family set up a tent across the street from the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, following a march from their home in MItzpeh Hila. The tent was recently dismantled following Gilad Shalit’s return from captivity. Protest tents were set up over the years in different public spaces, among them opposite the government offices, the Knesset, and the prime minister’s residence in other political contexts.
Galia Gur Zeev
Curator | | |
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