Jérusalem, Hospital de Sainte-Hélène, Face Sud 1854 - 1859

This photograph of the south face of the Hospital of Saint Helena in Jerusalem was taken by Auguste Salzmann. In the mid-19th century, photography was mobilized as a tool of colonial documentation and control, often framing non-Western cultures through an Orientalist lens. Salzmann's photographs of Jerusalem sought to present an "objective" record, in his hopes to reveal the "true" Jerusalem. Instead what we see is a romantic vision of the Holy Land. The stark, geometric architecture of the hospital, is devoid of human presence, which lends the scene an air of timelessness, but also erasure. What does it mean to strip a place of its inhabitants in order to reveal the “truth”? Look closely at the stones, consider the layers of history embedded within this architecture, and think about whose stories are told and whose are left out of this visual narrative.