Israel in photos

In 2007, French photographer Frédéric Brenner got together 11 internationally acclaimde colleagues to capture images of Israel and the West Bank. Seven year slater, the resulting project - entitled "This Place" - is now touring various cities around the world with a realistic, yet artistic perspective on the troubled region.

DW: What is the project "This Place" about?

Frédéric Brenner: The project deals with Israel as a place and a metaphor. I see Israel as the pathology of the world. So it has of course to do with Israel, but in many ways you can look at these images and you don't think Israel, if you didn't know that it is about Israel. So it is an exploration of the human condition, on the polyphony outside and within.

It is, of course, the polyphony that Israel is about, but unless it brings us to listen to our own polyphony, the conflicts start within our self. Most of the time we have to find the inner man. It is not about the outside. So my perspective is really metaphysical; it is really an exploration of the human condition. Fernando Pessoa says somewhere, "Each one is several, many is a profusion of selves. (…) In the outstretched colony of our being, people of all kinds exist who think and feel in different ways."

When you started the project seven years ago, could you imagine that it would one day result in a globally touring exhibition with 12 internationally acclaimed photographers (including yourself)?

One the one hand I needed to imagine and I am someone with great expectations. But at the same time, I could not imagine what I was seeing at the exhibition in Prague. I believe that I was the vessel for something which grew far beyond my understanding. When you think of this place, which is really a minefield, and when you think of 12 big personalities, I believe that this project happened because of the great deal of mastering, will and determination and a great deal of surrendering and embracing.

What were the things you needed to surrender to? The dynamics that developed by themselves in the project or to the circumstances?

You cannot even imagine what the difficulties were, from raising $6 million, to 12 artists who were all intrigued by the working hypothesis, but also deeply concerned by what was behind it. It is Israel. The main question was, "Is it propaganda?"

Photographers were afraid of being, as you say in French, instrumentalisé, and it took many months, a good year for them to understand that it was really a genuine offer. It was what I call a carte blanche. And of course I had my own fears. Huge fears. But huge desires as well. My own work is called "an archeology of fear and desire." This project has enabled me personally more than ever in my life to open to the unknown.

How did you choose the photographers that participated?

Because I looked at Israel as a place of radical otherness, I wanted to choose others to question this otherness. I wanted to have a very large spectrum of different ethnic, national and religious identities. And I wanted to have a very large spectrum of grammar and syntaxes.

Why did you decide to work with photography artists instead of photojournalists or documentary photographers?

I though that only poets and authors, like Thomas Struth or Stephen Shore, could maybe dare to open a non-dual perspective, to look beyond the for/against, victim/perpetrators - to really look beyond the political narrative. I wanted people that would reinvent for them a grammar and syntax for contemporary art.

The project was financed only through private donations. How did you manage the fundraising and convince people to donate? Do the photographers get any compensation?

They don't get anything. It is just pure philanthropy, pure love for photography. No expectation, no return. They really gave because they believed in the project. But it was very hard to fundraise. We still need more money to finish. (…) We started in early 2007 with the crash of Wall Street, and the $6 million didn't come at once.

All the photographers will publish their own book, in addition to their work being presented in the exhibition and in a joint catalogue. What is the difference for you between a book and an exhibition?

If you work on a project like that and you just have a part in a catalogue to show your work - that is impossible. I mean you want to have a space where you can express yourself freely and give the breadth of your endeavor and your understanding and not-understanding. I mean, just to have 10 linear meters and four or six pages in the book is not enough. So for everyone, the books are very important. Fazal Sheikh, for example, is publishing four books. The project became kind of his obsession.

The photographs from the "This Place" project are displayed online. They are also being shown through March 2015 at the Dox Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague. After that, the exhibition will travel to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and on to several institutions in the United States. The catalogue of the exhibition was published by Mack Books, which also published Frédéric Brenner's book "An Archeology of Fear and Desire."

Felix Koltermann interviewed Frédéric Brenner. He blogs at fotografieundkonflikt.blogspot.com and tweets at @FKoltermann.