Art Gallery

Kids with Cameras—Jerusalem

September 25 to November 2, 2008

Jason Eskenazi arrived in Jerusalem armed with twenty-four Canon point-and-shoot cameras and 250 rolls of Kodak film. This project in Israel was the second in the Kids with Cameras series. But instead of taking place in a community that was marginalized economically, as in Calcutta, Jerusalem was divided politically and culturally. The goal of the project was to make a portrait of Jerusalem from each side of the divide.
Twelve Arab kids and twelve Jewish kids were brought together by participating in the same project and by viewing each other’s work, even if they could rarely be in the same physical space. Eskenazi learned about the situation in the Middle East through the eyes of the kids he taught.

Eskenazi still hopes to return to Jerusalem one day, and to make a special evening and exhibition inviting all the kids and their parents, and all of Jerusalem.

This exhibit has traveled to many U.S cities including Boston, New York, Austin and San Francisco. As it travels in the U.S. some communities have creates their own program modeled on the Jerusalem project to help to foster communication between local American communities of Jews and Muslims.
Jason Eskenazi was born in Queens, New York; a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar and has just published his first photography book, Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith.

Visit www.kidswithcameras-jerusalem.com for more information.

Kids with Cameras is a non-profit organization that teaches the art of photography to marginalized children in communities around the world. They use photography to capture the imaginations of children, to empower them, building self-esteem and hope. They share their vision and voices with the world through exhibitions, books, websites and film. Kids with Cameras was founded in 2002 by photographer Zana Briski who also directed “Born into Brothels”, winner of the 77th Academy Awards for Best Documentary feature. Besides Calcutta, where Zana taught photography to the children of prostitutes, Kids with Cameras has brought other workshops to Jerusalem, Haiti, and Cairo.