Visions of landscape photography in Palestine and Israel

ABSTRACT

Landscape photography is a visual construction of nature. Viewing recurrent representations of landscape photographs can contribute to the creation of national and political visual heritages, appropriation, and cultural claims over lands. Thus, landscape photographs serve as mediums for influencing political agendas and ideologies. These ideas are illustrated in this study by analysing European, Palestinian, and Zionist landscape photographs of the Holy Land (Zion/Palestine) from the middle of the nineteenth century and up to contemporary artistic Israeli photography. I contend that landscape photography was employed as a political tool at the hands of European and pre-statehood, Zionist photography for cultural land appropriation in their political struggles, while local Palestinian documentation was absent from this arena.

KEYWORDS:

• Photography
• Palestine
• Israel
• landscape
• Zionism
• appropriation
• colonialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Edna Barromi-Perlman

Edna Barromi-Perlman is a visual researcher. Barromi-Perlman is a faculty member of the Department of Visual Literacy in Kibbutz College of Education in Israel, a Research Fellow of the Institute for Research of the Kibbutz in the University of Haifa and a Research Associate of The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, USA.