This Place
Program: Jewish
Area of Work: Arts
Grant Purpose: Traveling Exhibition
Overview
Initiated by photographer Frederic Brenner, This Place is a globally traveling exhibition that explores the complexity of Israel and the West Bank through the eyes of 12 acclaimed international photographers. Each photographer was awarded a residence in Israel and the West Bank and, while there, traveled throughout the region. Together, they created thousands of original works of art. Their highly individualized works combine to create not a single, monolithic vision, but rather a diverse and fragmented portrait that shows the complexity, rifts and paradoxes of this important and much-contested space.
Grant
Purpose: To support the creation and dissemination of This Place.
Launched in 2007, This Place proceeded through multiple phases spanning 13 years, including residencies, a traveling exhibition, companion monographs and books, public events, university-based education programs, and a digital initiative to amplify these real-world conversations to thousands of people around the world who might not see the exhibition or who prefer to conduct their conversations online and through social media. From its inception, This Place was designed to bring together artists with different perspectives, and of different nationalities and religions, and they were given wide space to explore Israel and the territories through their own subjective views and choose their own motifs. The Illumination Fund supported this initiative since 2008, during each stage of the project, from creation of the bodies of work to exhibitions at museums in Prague, Brooklyn, West Palm Beach, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and upstate New York, and dissemination to global audiences through publications and online.
Impact
This Place reached hundreds of thousands of museum visitors, and the exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum was selected by Jewish Week as one of the most significant arts and cultural events of the 2010-2019 decade and a “must-see” by Forbes.
