1997 - 1998

ANGLO ISRAELI PHOTOGRAPHIC AWARDS

BRITISH AND ISRAELI PHOTOGRAPHERS' PERSONAL VIEWS OF EACH OTHERS' COMMUNITIES

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

The Awards scheme was created in 1992 to promote artistic and cultural communications between Britain and Israel through photography. The scheme is open to all regardless of cultural, racial or religious background, giving the in opportunity to discover a culture new to them and to exhibit the results of their explorations both in Israel. The 1997 Awards exhibition will tour to the Bradford Design Exchange during July 1998. The 1997 British selection committee included John Goto, photographer; Frank Dabba Smith, Rabbi and photographer; Verdi Vahooda, photographer; Ruth Charity, Former Exhibitions Organiser, Photographers' Gallery, London, and Sandra Jacobs, photographer and Trustee, Anglo Israeli Awards.

This is the fourth group of photographers to participate in the scheme. In the summer of 1998 the fifth year of the awards will be marked by a conference held in Israel to discuss 'The Role of the Artist at the End of the Millennium' at which lectures and workshops will be given by invited speakers from Britain and Israel. Time will also be taken to review the scheme to date and to plan for the next five years Thus no awards will be made in 1998.

GREAT BRITAIN

Katrina Lithgow

A graduate from the Royal College of Art, has set out to explore the issues surrounding the continuing practice of baptism of Christian pilgrims in the River Jordan. Through a series of black and white portraits, she shows how a supremely mystical event has become in many instances a tourist spectacle.

Christopher Matthews

A New Zealand-born photographer, has himself something in common with the subjects of Katrina's baptismal portraits. Originating from outside Europe, he approached his time in Israel from the point of the tourist and the late twentieth century pilgrim. Seeking to photograph objects and locations which summed up for him sacred places of the Holy Land, he has created a group of personal visual souvenirs and 'keepsakes' which allow him -- and the viewer -- to relive his experience.

ISRAEL

Ziv Sher

Images have been produced in the form of a visual diary documenting his first ever visit to England. Travelling between a disparate group of contacts spread across the country, he has visited odd corners of England as an 'innocent abroad', recording his impressions using black and white photography. The resulting images, which juxtapose unlikely subjects, reveal a fresh, quirky and personal view of what constitutes 'Englishness'.

Deborah Taylor-Zimelman

This project in England builds on a previous body of work produced in Israel. Initially, she spent time with a group of teenage girls in her local neighbourhood in Jerusalem, photographing their rooms - their personal, private spaces which reflect their own identities and personalities. With this as a starting point, she came to England to create a parallel project, broadening her enquiries to look more generally at the lifestyles of a group of North London Jewish girls. Seen side by side, these two set of colour images highlight both the similarities of adolescence and the enormous contrasts between two disparate ways of life.