Israel Photography House – for research and documentation of local photography is a digital lexicon site currently under construction as a flagship project of the photography department at MUZA, the Eretz Israel Museum, with assistance from Mifal HaPais. The site’s goals are to present the history of local photography to Israeli society, to preserve visual-photographic culture and open a window onto a multi-layered, fascinating and mostly hidden world – from the origins of photography in Israel to the present day, including both documentary and artistic photography.
The Eretz Israel Museum holds important photography collections, and over the years many exhibitions have been mounted dealing with photographers and the history of photography in Israel. The site will showcase the museum’s photography collections and act as a “crossroads” for exposing millions of photographs and negatives held in public and private archives in Israel – visual images documenting the spirit of the place, the people, and the period.
Israel Photography House will display photographic samplers documenting everyday life, society and culture in Israel; it will publicize photos from hundreds of local photographers and the locations where they worked; it will present research performed to date by many researchers and curators and will include links to the various photographers’ and archives’ websites.
A special section of the site will be dedicated to iconic photographs from the pre-state period, through the establishment of the state and up to our own time. The site will also feature a survey of the various periods of Israeli photography and will include an online exhibition gallery. The site will serve photographers, curators, researchers, college and school students and photography enthusiasts among the public. Israel Photography House will also initiate projects for digital preservation and research into photographers of the past, present, and future.
MUZA, the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, is a multidisciplinary museum dealing with local culture of the past and present, exhibiting the connection between material and spirit, and giving a platform to the country’s many and varied voices. The new character of the exhibitions and displays seeks to create contemporary connections between the cultural aspects dealt with by the museum, including archaeology, ethnography, applied crafts, art, photography and documentation of Israeli society, and to expand them. In the light of the above, the Eretz Israel Museum has taken upon itself to realize the dream, to take the initiative and set up the Israel Photography House website.
The founder and initiator of the Israel Photography House is Guy Raz, photographer, curator, and researcher, curator of the photography department of the Eretz Israel Museum. The website is based on his groundbreaking research work “Photographers of Israel” published in 2003 by HaKibbutz HaMeuhad and Mapa.