When the Land Speaks

A persistent gaze, the punctual photographic attitude that turns a maze of symbols into a revealed riddle of meanings.

 I wander through limits, investigating boundaries and places that are usual to the Israeli landscape but still pass unnoticed to most of its residents; spaces and forms are approached and experienced time and again. My photography is a journey where volumes and human landscapes belong not just to the place itself but adhere to a personal biography.

 I am puzzled by the eccentric and confused identity of my peers, the “Israeli Identity” became the field of my investigation: the blurred borders, the inadequacy, the peculiar way in which contradictions are revealed to the eye; the legitimate relation between a landscape and the people belonging to it. The ways through which temporary becomes permanent, its social relevance: a constant confrontation with the ordinary comprehension of what surrounds our life and the ultimate understanding of its real meaning. Social and political transcend their denomination, becoming an added value of our daily routine.

 It is through the extreme and detailed rendition of the 8x10inch camera format, where the peculiar behind the ordinary is revealed, that the stories of the day-by-day Israeli landscape are assembled, and made sense of: building the statement of a constant observation.

Yaakov Israel 2009