PHOTOMARKET

Photographs - 1850-1920
On Thursday, July 22, 2004, PHOTOMARKET will open at the Tower of David Museum. Using over 40 photographs taken from the middle of the 19th century until the 1920s, the exhibition takes a look into the life and trade on of the streets in Jerusalem from by-gone days, allowing the visitor to confront the figures, sites, smells and sounds that filled the streets of that period.
	Jerusalem at the end of the 19th century was characterised by the commerce that took place in the open squares and streets of the city both in and outside of the walls. Merchandise and products, were on the streets on every corner … it was as if the goods spilled from the shops onto the sidewalks. The streets were filled with buyers and sellers, peddlers, farmers and passers-by from the area. A wide variety of goods were on offer, from the basic necessities such as fruit and bread to various animals, spices, sweets, soaps, shoes, jewellery and church candles etc. On the street one could enjoy the services of the various workers like moneychangers, request and letter writers and ceramic menders.
The special scenes of the packed streets caught the eyes of visitors from the west who came to Jerusalem at that time. The increasing curiosity in the west about the Middle East as the cradle of western civilisation motivated many visitors who filled their travel journals with visual and written documentation. Many of them had experience and knowledge in photography and always carried with them their cameras and equipment. Few were professional photographers who made a living from the pictures; many were just amateurs who were following a hobby. Amongst them were also locals like the photographers from the American Colony.

	The scenes of the market and street commerce that were viewed by the photographers as exotic and strange, different from what they knew in the west. The photographers frequently documented the daily experience on the streets of Jerusalem and thanks to them this rare historical social and ethnographic documentation has been preserved and is still being used by researchers and historians today.
Curator: Nissan Perez, Senior Curator of Photography at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and editor of the book - FOCUS EAST, the history of photography in the Middle East.