#HaifaPost

#HaifaPost

From the Postcard to Instagram

Historical postcards were once used as "milestones" marking personal travels throughout the world: souvenirs from a specific place such as a city, a country, a site and so on. Using postcards, travelers would send messages to their loved ones, sharing with them the sights they saw and experienced. The pictures appearing on the postcards were usually photographs or drawings of a place or a site, generally depicted in a dramatic and appealing manner. In the pre-digital world, postcards allowed people to gain an impression of far-off places and become acquainted with enchanting sights worldwide.

Today, postcards have become almost obsolete as a means of communication, replaced by numerous digital means for documenting travels and journeys. The great ease with which moments can be captured nowadays allows anyone with a mobile phone to send his or her impressions of different places to their friends. Social networks supply a tool for documenting precious moments and sharing them with the rest of the world. Instagram, for example, allows its users to shoot a photograph, edit it using various means (filters), and dispatch it to whoever may be interested. The "hashtag" explains where it was taken and what it shows. In fact, a personal Instagram account is like a photographed diary or a postcard album from all parts of the world that is shared online and accessible to all.

The Yermiyahu and Shoshana Rimon Collection at the Haifa City Museum contains over 2,000 postcards of Haifa, from the nineteenth century to the 1980s. The postcards document the important sites in Haifa and the familiar perspectives and viewpoints of the city. The exhibition presents iconic postcards of Haifa from the collection: the Bahai Gardens, Mount Carmel, the sea shore, the city's older neighborhoods, and Haifa Bay – all these appear in the cards, which spread before us a magnificent, enhanced view of the city of Haifa.

As a chronological extension of the cards, the exhibition also presents dozens of Instagram photos of Haifa, which similarly present its outstanding sites through various photographic filters. The show seeks to create a sequence of Haifa views – beginning with the old postcards and ending with contemporary photographs taken using a smartphone and Instagram filters. The medium has changed over the years, but the same iconic viewpoints have remained attractive and are now disseminated to the entire world. The Instagram photos, presented in the exhibition space alongside the cards, thereby acquire a new and unexpected meaning.

Exhibition curator: Yifat Ashkenazi

Exhibition consultant: Shiri Wizner Levinkopf

Curating staff: Efrat Avni Mazhe

Museum curator: Inbar Dror Lax

The Exhibition is Sponsored by