How to Photograph in the Land of Israel? is the title of a two-page chapter in the first Zionist guidebook to Palestine, published in 1937. My project goes back to early Zionist geographers and photographers to uncover the history of local photography—one that is made up of images illustrating school books, travel guides, and geography lectures. These, in turn, informed contemporary perceptions of this land, perceptions that we must contend with and critically reexamine.

The ‘Knowledge of the Land’ (yedi’at ha’aretz) is a unique academic discipline for Israel, combining Geography, History, Archaeology, and Biblical Studies, with a bit of folklore and myth-making. Most important within its mythologies is the way to acquire that knowledge – “through the feet” - by actively walking the land, an action that often leads to settlement and land grabbing. The discipline was developed by early 20th-century tour guides, who instructed their groups with the help of the Bible, creating a new Sacred Geography. The project focuses on Ze’ev Vilnai, the archetypal Zionist tour guide, who often also traveled around the country by himself, presenting images and lecturing using a Magic Lantern.

The project is presented as the Cabinet of Curiosities of the Zionist excursion, introducing new compositions for existing materials that are a product of the two tools I examine - the excursion, and photography. My Cabinet of Curiosities does not ask to create any new knowledge, but to decipher an existing one - what is it that we know - when we ‘know’ the land?