The Jerusalem Fund Gallery Presents…Palestine Lost Stereopticon Images of Palestine from the Early 1900’s

posted on: Sep 30, 2009

The Jerusalem Fund Gallery presents…Palestine Lost
Stereopticon Images of Palestine from the Early 1900’s, through November 13, 2009.

Stereopticon images, or lantern slides, became popular in the late 1800’s as a way for armchair travelers to experience faraway places. Viewed through an image merging device, the dual photographs become three-dimensional, resulting in a realistic, you are there feeling. The Jerusalem Fund Gallery showcases 45 rare images of a Palestine that has been mostly erased from view, a Palestine of people, farms, homes and life that for a large part only exists in these images and in memory.

Helen Zughaib and Rajie Cook have both previously exhibited their work at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery. For this exhibition, they show works that speak to the theme of keys to Palestinian family homes now vanished, the only tangible symbol remaining of a very personal Palestine Lost.

Helen Zughaib was born in Beirut, Lebanon and lived in the Middle East and Europe. Her painting Midnight Prayers, exhibited in the Gallery’s Gaza Conversations show, was recently presented as an official gift by President Barak Obama to President Nuri al Malaki of Iraq. Her paintings are included in over 80 public and private collections, including the White House and the Arab American National Museum in Detroit, Michigan. She was recently appointed U.S. Cultural Envoy to the West Bank.

Rajie Cook is an internationally known graphic designer, photographer and artist. In 1984, he received the Presidential Award for Design Excellence. In 2003, his firm’s project, “Symbols Signs,” was accepted to the collections of the Smithsonian Institution. Cook last exhibited at the Jerusalem Fund Gallery’s Gaza Conversations. He has generously lent the Gallery examples from his extensive collection of rare stereopticon images of Palestine.

Exhibit location and hours:

2425 Virginia Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20037, (202) 338-1958, www.thejerusalemfund.org/gallery Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m