20 Years of Local Testimony

In 2002, Dana Wohlfeiler-Lalkin began presenting press and documentary photography exhibitions. During the first year, the World Press Photo exhibition was displayed, and in 2003 she established the Local Testimony exhibition, which has been presented alongside it ever since.

Local Testimony was founded in the late stages of the security crisis of the Second Intifada. Now, the 20 Years of Testimony exhibition takes place during a time of war, in a poignant security and political era..

In its early days, Local Testimony was exhibited in non-institutional settings. In 2004, after two years on the observatory floor of the Azrieli Towers, the exhibition moved to Dizengoff Center, where it was displayed in various spaces until it was invited in 2009 to be presented at MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.

Over twenty years of Local Testimony, photography has evolved in innovative directions: the transition from analog to digital photography was completed, and the internet and mobile phones became mass information distribution tools.

The 20 Years of Testimony exhibition will be presented alongside the 2023 exhibition, from December 5th, 2023, to February 3rd, 2024. The exhibition was curated by members of the Local Testimony editorial board: photographer Vardi Kahana, curator Ami Steinitz, and Dana Wohlfeiler-Lalkin, the founder and curatorial director. Selected images and video clips from the extensive Local Testimony archive are displayed alongside a series of interviews with photographers in a video installation created by artist Ran Slavin.

An upcoming book will accompany the exhibition, featuring selected photographs and articles written specifically to mark the occasion. Local Testimony has become the primary exhibition accompanying local press and documentary photography, expressing its unique historical, cultural, and artistic value.

Many professionals are partners in this endeavor: photographers, judging panels, and curators who rotate every two years. We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has walked with us on this vital path of documentary photography. Warm thanks to the tens of thousands of visitors who visit the exhibition every year.

Dates: December 6, 2023 – February 3, 2024

Curators: Dana Wohlfeiler-Lalkin, Vardi Kahana, Ami Steinitz

Video Creator: Ran Slavin

Location: MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv

All multimedia systems in the exhibition are courtesy of Sameline, the official importer of Samsung home appliances.

On Twenty Years of Testimony

Things I Have Learned from Photojournalists
Twenty years have passed since I founded Local Testimony. Twenty years of working with press photography and closely following the day-to-day work of the photographers, who document daily happenings in the complex, explosive place we live in.

Photojournalists reflect and shape the character of different processes in many facets of life; through them we are exposed to, learn about and feel phenomena, situations, conflicts and the different forms of otherness.

Local Testimony is perceived as a difficult exhibition. The many images that make up the exhibition force us to look straight into the eyes of a repressed other, to see injustice towards marginalized groups, to notice the violence and conflict. I have often wondered about the factors that cause the exhibition to attract a broad, diverse audience, year after year. It is hard enough to cope with the reality of our lives, how is visiting an exhibition that exposes the great hardship that surrounds us not deterring?

I believe that the power of the exhibition stems from the fact that it creates a whole that causes us to sense, to feel. We are living in a world that is constantly flooded with changing images and countless streaming services that are more or less connected to our being. The exhibition invites us to enter an aggregate dimension that refines the local agenda; a whole that reminds us of the events of the past year, helps us focus our civil attention and perhaps even calls for activism.

Examination of the still photographs enables prolonged study, thought and identification.

In many cases, a visual image can shock and upset, even just for a moment, the sense of security of the viewer, who suddenly feels that he himself may fall sacrifice to an extreme event. A difficult picture of reality pushes us into the corner, but also raises the call to recognize this reality and act.

In her book, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag doubts the ability of pictures to effect change or stimulate feelings more complex than compassion or empathy. Therefore, she believes, the role of pictures is to push us to action, whether due to a passing feeling of guilt or due to the immediate dichotomy created between "I", the viewer, and them, "the others".

The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas defined the face-to-face meeting as the basis for ethical thinking. Levinas believed that the root of human ethics is hidden in the encounter with the face of the other, which presents him as a foreigner, but also as a human. His perspective gives complex, abstract meanings to the concept of "face"; not only the physical "face" but also the metaphysical and metaphorical faces of our humanity.

When we say that there are two sides to an event, we do not mean that both sides are right, rather that both sides are human. At the end of the day, there is always an ethical act and a non-ethical act. We ask to listen, or in our case, inspect and look directly at the other side, not in search of justice or understanding, but to identify its humanity, to pity it and ourselves, and to open the door to change.

Photojournalists have taught me to look directly at the other, and not be afraid of the hardship, but rather, to adopt it and develop emotionally and socially through it. The photographers, as agents of reality with a trained eye and creative ability to frame scenarios, convey to me the essence of recognizing the other in their esthetic, unique way.

Local Testimony has developed into its current form thanks to many excellent people, who like me, were infected with the bug. I would like to take this opportunity to express the thanks and great appreciation I feel towards them. First, to my dear partner, Erez Lalkin, who opened for me a window to curiosity and investigation; Amí Steinitz, curator and board member, who generously shares his accumulated knowledge and vast experience and boosts my confidence in myself and my path; Anat Kleiman, curator and graphic designer, my partner in the journey from the beginning, who gives of herself with love and great talent; Sandy Teperson, the producer, who grew and developed as a member of our staff - I find it hard to remember how things looked before she joined us; Vardi Kahana, who has joined the board and with uncompromising assertiveness and dedication sets a high, uncompromising standard of exhibition quality.

I also offer my appreciation to the different curators, who together with the board members rotate every two years and contribute greatly to renewing the face of the exhibition and expanding the circle of cultural and media personalities who are partners in its creation. Thanks to MUZA, Eretz Israel Museum, headed by director general Ami Katz and chief curator Raz Samira, and to the dedicated staff and exhibition designers in the past and present, who give the exhibition a supremely professional home. Special long-term collaborations have developed with Ofek, Samsung, Ynet and Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality; they allow us to present a complex perspective of the exhibition and expose it to the general public.

I thank you all wholeheartedly.
Between the Mass and the Unique
Over the twenty years of Local Testimony, the annual documentary and photojournalism exhibition, photography has developed in new directions: the transition from printed analog photography to digital files has been completed, and the world wide web – the internet – has become a tool for mass dissemination of information; cameras, photo editing software and social media have been integrated in cellphones, which have expanded the global spectrum of users and empowered the creation and dissemination of visual expression; networks of security cameras cover public spaces, and programs for identification, imaging and collection of data have been developed to process visual and verbal information using artificial intelligence tools; and digital recording, which is exposed to editing and dissemination of fake news, makes it all the more difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction.

The transition from print to digital, from paper to screens, has completely changed the appearance of the press. From the 1990s, established newspapers set up websites and the civil press began to appear on blogs and social media. Commercial companies reduced the extent of their advertising in print media with limited distribution and transitioned to electronic media. Newspapers such as Koteret Rashit, Monitin, Chadashot, Davar, Ha'ir, Al Hamishmar and others closed, and the employment conditions of the professional photographers employed by the press took a significant change for the worse.

Mass photography, available to everyone, has exacerbated the erosion of the value and credibility of photographs, but pervasive social presence has empowered its documentary significance. On the personal, family and community levels, photography has become the main tool for recording, collecting, processing and presenting life events.

The movement between the mass and the unique has accompanied photography since its invention in the 19th century, and each audience-expanding stage in its development has moved within the framework of these extremes. The infiltration of the camera, editing, duplication and dissemination to all corners of the earth is accompanied by a casual flood of images, but also offers unprecedented documentation of different voices. Photography is not just an expression of a technological ability. It gives marginalized communities independent presence in the field of visual culture representation. Alongside print journalism, radio and television, which act in different channels, we have witnessed the development of mass media, which gathers, combines and edits representations that comprise pictures, sound, video and text. The act of photography has expanded to personal curation processes, which include selection of pictures, organizing and archiving by subject and creation of themed online displays.

Individual editing abilities, which are advancing and expanding at a growing rate, have changed communication patterns and created threats to social stability. Unreliable coverage from contradicting sources and invasive cyber tools has loaded the political tapestry with opportunities for fake propaganda in the name of gaining strength and recruiting supporters. Social polarization, which has become more exacerbated in Israel since Rabin's murder, is linked to fact disputing, enabled by the flood of media and the need for a different kind of examination of the complex socio-cultural picture. Erosion of the image and distortion of its role emphasize the current global situation in which essential documentation takes place amid abuse, breach of trust and social disintegration.

In 2002 Dana Wohlfeiler-Lalkin initiated the annual presentation of a photojournalism and documentary photography exhibition as a place for a lingering look at the deeper levels of documentation images. In the first year, the exhibition World Press Photo was displayed alongside a local photography exhibition in partnership with the journal Masa Acher (A Different Journey), and in 2003 Dana established the exhibition Local Testimony, that has been displayed since then alongside the global exhibition. The number of visitors, which continues to grow with time, proves the need for lingering, for the focused view of a local and global annual exhibition, for the human, ethical and technological dimensions recorded by the daily flow of documentation; for the social, creative, and historical meaning captured by the photographers.

The expression of reality in the fields of art and media is loaded with a similar type of doubt. Closeness to and distance from reality have occupied art from the dawn of civilization. The different historical expressions have created a rich visual heritage of coping with social powers that dictate the existential purpose according to their worldview. This tradition provides a multicultural backdrop for contemporary documentation processes, which take place in a society in crises, shrouded in the dark sides of improving imaging technologies. Photography and visual media programs act within the framework of art studies, while free art marks the limits of intellectual tools, arouses a sensory perception, and summons a different timeframe of creation and observation.

Local Testimony was set up according to the format of the exhibition World Press Photo, which was established in the Netherlands in the early 1950s. Local Testimony is based on a competition to which photographers submit selected photographs from the last year according to categories; the winning works are selected by a panel of judges and a curator who rotate every two years. A permanent editorial board accompanies the processes of judging, production, graphic design, and installation of the exhibition. This combination of competition and curation creates a special content structure that expands the number of partners in the creation of the local exhibition.

The first international exhibition, held on floor 49, the observatory in the round tower of the three Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv, displayed photographs from the terror attack on 11 September, 2001, on the Twin Towers in New York, from Afghanistan after the American invasion, and from the Al-Aqsa Intifada in the Occupied Territories. These events marked a new era of militias, world terror, national struggles, cyber wars, social media, and a close connection between local events and global instability.

In its early days, Local Testimony suffered a lack of permanent display conditions. After two years on the observatory floor of the Azrieli Towers, the exhibition moved to Dizengoff Center in 2004, where it was displayed each year in a different space, until 2009, when it was invited to be displayed at MUZA, Eretz Israel Museum.

Despite the intensifying role of photography in culture, media and daily life, photojournalism and documentary photography in Israel remain on the fringes of artistic creativity. The cultural and media context is perceived as a barrier compared to the exclusive status of the artist. Documentary photography requires a space of phenomena, a random occurrence of signs that dictate unexpected conversation with otherness that animates the occurrence between mass-produced and unique. Emotional, social, and documentary awareness records uncontrolled, borderline combinations that break down hierarchies. Documentary photographers operate from an extra-institutional standpoint that is exposed to social dangers, and from a relative position in which expression does not involve only itself.

Video Installation – 20 Years of Testimony

20 Years of Testimony – The Interviews

Timeline

Photographers

Eli Atias Nir Elias Mor Alnekave Miriam Alster Ilan Assayag Tomer Appelbaum Oded Balilty Oren Ben Hakoon Ilan Ben Yehuda Eli Basri Daniel Bar-On Bea Bar Kallos Alexander Bronfer Miki Brandt Ariel Bernstein Chaim Goldberg Ahmad Gharabli Yoav Galai Nimrod Glickman Roee Greenberg Natan Dvir Jim Hollander Haggai Hirschfeld Nitzan Hafner Oliver Weiken Pavel Wolberg Kobi Wolf Barkay Wolfson Nir Weiss Yehonatan Weitzman Ronen Zvulun Itzik Sonnenstein Oren Ziv Yonatan Sindel Dan Haimovich Yuval Chen Matanya Tausig Yuval Tebol Gilad Topaz Yehoshua Yosef Yanai Yechiel Max Yelinson Ilya Efimovich Tomer Ifrah Amir Cohen Guy Cohen David Cohen Menahem Kahana Avshalom Levi Amir Levy Heidi Levine Maya Levin Felix Lupa Chen Leopold Tali Mayer Muhammed Muheisen Motti Milrod Ohad Milstein Omer Messinger Yaniv Nadav Yaakov Naumi Doron Nissim Etty Namir Abir Sultan Kfir Sivan Uriel Sinai Emil Salman Atef Safadi Ilan Spira Ahikam Seri Ammar Awad Atta Iwissat Avigail Uzi Roee Idan ZL Dor Pazuelo Olivier Fitoussi Yariv Fine Gity Palti Hadas Parush Michal Fattal Daniel Chechik Ohad Zwigenberg Ezra Tsachor Gilad Kavalerchik Alex Kolomoisky Ziv Koren Nir Keidar Kika Kirschenbaum Ben Kelmer Rina Castelnuovo Reuven Castro Edward Kaprov Corinna Kern Tamar Keren Yoel Robert Assayag Sarina Rosner Itai Raziel Eldad Rafaeli Amit Shabi Avishag Shaar-Yashuv Michael Shvadron Nati Shohat Shelly Shalev Rami Shllush Ariel Schalit Ben Shani Amit Sha'al Asaf Shapir

To the 2023 Exhibition Gallery