Ancient orient in pictures

Christina/ November 8, 2009/ Culture

Last thursday I visited the exhibition “With camel and camera“, historical Orient pictures 1864-1970 at Museum for ethnography in Hamburg. The photo exposition shows an essence of the museum collection which have been taken between 1864 and 1970. The pictures show historical receptions from the Middle and Near East as well as from North Africa.

Photos taken by the Leipzig photograph Bruno Hentschel on the Levante (in particular Syria) impressed me a lot. Unfortunately I could not find out much about him on the internet. The view on the alleged alien from an European perspective produces partly the not intended opposite: The fokus is not on the photographed but the sometimes naive photographer with his transfigured conception of the Orient. Where oddities should have been presented the audience wonders what came into the photo motives mind during the shot.

It is a pitty that there is no audio-guide available for the exhibition and that guided tours are only available on 06.12 and 13.12.2009. Unfortunately there are no describing captions, only superordinate information for each region. The exhibition closes on 30.12.2009.

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