#thisplacephoto

“I wanted to know why these people are there, to reach beyond the stereotypes and engage with the land and the people themselves.” — Nick Waplington on This Place

Twelve international photographers participated in This Place, a monumental art project documenting Israel and the West Bank. Each artist brought their own perspective and unique approach to the medium of photography, resulting in a nuanced and multifaceted look at this complex part of the world.

Nick Waplington lived in Israel from spring of 2008 until the summer of 2010, creating a photographic survey of more than two hundred Jewish settlements in the West Bank. He returned through 2012, both to complete this project and to work on other projects related to the region, including a sculptural series of water tanks which were transformed into ‘racing cars’. 

Often travelling alone, he explored the landscape, architecture, and the contradictory nature of settler identity. With this work Waplington focused on new immigrants from the Jewish diaspora paying particular attention to families from Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia and the United States, who had given up other lives to help create settlements in the hills of the West Bank. His project combines intimate family portraits with images of the natural and built environment. This group of photographs represents a small selection from the more than one thousand images he made in the settlements; a larger selection of images is included in his book Settlement.

Nick Waplington received an ICP Infinity award in 1993, and represented the UK at the Venice Biennale in 2001. He has exhibited widely including the Whitechapel Gallery, London and The Philadelphia Museum of Art. His work is held in a number of prominent museum collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and MoMA, New York.

“In the end, I strive to make pictures that are arresting, that you have to keep looking at.” —Thomas Struth on This Place

“I wanted to reveal the humanity of every person I photographed. One person led to another.” —Rosalind Fox Solomon on This Place

“By directing my attention to different subjects and approaching them with a range of photographic techniques, I am attempting to allude to the complexity of Israeli life.” —Stephen Shore on This Place