Harel Gilboa
The Lowest Place on Earth
In 1840, the “father of photography” Henry Talbot travelled to Italy as a tourist. Exposed to the beauty of the foreign nature, he thought about how he could capture this beauty and fix it on paper. From that point on, photography would become an inseparable part of the tourist experience.
The tourist is a collector of images. For him, the images represent experiences through which he wishes to learn about things as they are and about his possible place in the world. The tourist experience, therefore, is not an experience of things but their representation. It is a practice that sets out to organize the world through images.
Created over the past three years, the project observes the tourist experience while forming a dialogue with the images of the Dead Sea space that were structured in my mind. Photography always indicates a balance of power between me and the world. The images serve as a marketing tool and formulate a fabricated story. I consume these and re-sell them.
I give in to the exoticism of the space, to the tourist experience, and create a portrait of representation. The space vanishes, fading away. All that remains is the image. The Dead Sea has become non-place. The disappearing sea is now more of an image than anything real.