Twenty years have passed since I founded Local Testimony. Years dedicated to press photography and closely following the work of photographers who document daily life in the complex and volatile place where we live.

Press photography gives expression to different ways of life and allows us to be exposed to phenomena, conflicts, and the differences between various groups in Israeli society. Photographers, as keen-eyed agents of reality, frame scenarios creatively. For me, they represent the ability to capture the "other" in a unique and aesthetic way. Press photographers have taught me to look directly, not to fear hardship, but to embrace it and to grow emotionally and socially from within it.

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I believe the power of Local Testimony exhibitions lies in their ability to awaken us, to make us feel, and to create a collective whole that distills the events of the past period, focuses civic attention, and even calls for social sensitivity. In many cases, a photograph can shock and unsettle our sense of security, as extreme circumstances lurk for each and every one of us. In her book Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag doubts the ability of images to bring about change or evoke compassion, yet she believes their role is to push for action.

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In its early years, Local Testimony was exhibited at the Azrieli Center and Dizengoff Center. Since 2009, MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, has become the exhibition’s professional home. As such, it validates and strengthens the historical, cultural, and artistic importance of documentary and press photography.

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Dana Wohlfeiler-Lalkin Founder and Director of Local Testimony

When we selected the photographs from the Local Testimony archive to mark twenty years of the exhibition, we could not have imagined the massacre that Hamas would carry out in the Western Negev on October 7th and its consequences: bereavement, the abduction and captivity of many, a multi-front war, and a future shrouded in uncertainty. Nevertheless, the images captured from 2003 to the present carry the bubbling murmur of a low-intensity war that suddenly erupted.

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From the Second Lebanon War in 2006, through a series of combat rounds in the Gaza Strip, to recent photographs of clashes between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank, the picture of the local situation becomes clear: a fragile existence on the edge, binding together conflict and daily life—a contradiction that becomes a routine from concealment; signals that transmit an overt but unobserved image, pushed out of consciousness.

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In the last twenty years, photography has shifted from analog to digital and became a tool in the service of the masses, who have become partners in the creation and distribution of visual images. Changing communication patterns have undermined social stability. News coverage based on dubious sources and invasive cyber tools has charged the delicate political fabric with false propaganda. Social polarization, national conflicts, and global tensions are not detached from the media flood and the unraveling of the once-obvious connection between image and reality. These societal ills, which were acutely expressed over the past year, call upon us to hold fast to the human values at the core of documentation. This vital challenge will accompany the coming years of Local Testimony.

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Ami Steinitz Curator, Member of the Local Testimony Editorial Board