Micha Bar-Am - Sea Shore: Maritime Museum Haifa

For obvious reasons, his exhibition at the National Maritime Museum focuses on a group of photographs that have a clear connection with the sea, with what goes on in and around it; from scenes of Haifa Port, capturing the first sight of the Land for new immigrants arriving by ship in the early 1950s, to the port workers and stevedores of that time, and fishing along the Sinai shore in the late 1960s, as well as a variety of views all along the coast. Those presented in the exhibition have no connection in regard to subject. Each of them is discrete due to its unique viewpoint, interesting composition, or connection with a specific event.

Bar-Am focuses on people. It is almost impossible not to find among his scenes, even those of the sea and its vastness, traces of humanity. Human activities are at the heart of the matter, even if they appear as distant points, or are merely suggested by a coloured hand-print impressed on the prow of a fishing-boat. Bar-Am is principally known as the photographer who has registered Israel’s wars, and his war images have become icons engraved in Israel’s collective memory. However, it is not just war to which he gives photographic expression. Among others, he photographed the new settlements in the Negev, the archaeological excavations in the Judean Desert, and the exposure of the Bar-Kochba epistles. He has filmed desert expanses and city streets. He recorded the peace process with Egypt from the moment President Sadat landed in Israel, as well as the evacuation of Sinai and the destruction of Yamit. He has followed the activities of the settlers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and the Palestinian uprisings. He has documented the hunt for terrorists, searches in Palestinian homes, and meetings with collaborators. He filmed the stormy election processes, the demonstrations in the squares, and the heads of state.

In the “Record” section of his book “The Last War” (Keter, 1996) Bar-Am writes: “I adopted the camera as a means of collecting actualities, a classification tool, a file for organizing and preserving memory. Later, I could forget whatever it was and remember only the photographic image. Those memories piled up. The archive swelled. Over the years the astonishing gap between actuality – “what really happened” – and what was caught by the camera gradually widened. Although each photo is a form of documentation, even the most direct image is not clear-cut or simple, without any kind of reference. The business of photography derives from a variety of reasons and rationales, cuts or selections according to the angle of the camera... Can there be ‘truth’ in a single interpretation? How can a captured image of time and place live again, cope with forgetfulness, defeat time?”

Micha Bar-Am began photographing when he was young, but he had no intention of becoming a photographer. He dreamt of adventure, of discovering new lands, and seems to have attained this goal by means of the camera. The urge for adventure sent him to look for unusual subjects, and many of his photos deal with threatening events and situations of violence. His pictures reveal hidden corners, the dramatic lighting of the city, and for decades he has portrayed the Israeli experience to readers of the most important newspapers and journals in the world, as well as in books and exhibitions.
“Journalism” says Bar-Am “is considered as a ‘first draft’ of history”. However, he is not satisfied with the term ‘docu-journalism’. He finds his challenge in an association that is almost impossible: “- to belong and be involved, and at the same time to stand apart as spectator and interpreter of some elusive affair, simultaneously reflecting what is actually happening and my personal view of it”.
After the War of Independence, he was a member of the founding group of Kibbutz Malkiya on the Lebanese Border. He then moved to Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv. Agricultural work did not appeal to him, so he ‘followed his heart’ – his love of travel – as a mounted guard, making long treks into the mountains and villages of Galilee. To fulfil his obligations to the kibbutz he worked elsewhere from time to time, occasionally as a photographer, and his photographs began to appear in movement publications. At that time he did not own a camera, so he borrowed from fellow-kibbutzniks. “The turning point in my life
was when I finally acquired my first camera. I photographed life in the kibbutz, and sometimes, on Friday evenings, I would present a small display at the entrance to the dining-room”.
“I’m a great believer in being personally involved in whatever you deal with. When I was still a kibbutznik and a traveller who knew the country – and there isn’t a single place in Israel that I have not been to, either on foot or on horseback – I also joined the archaeological research parties in the Judean Desert and in Galilee. That’s how I became involved in one of the great events of the country – or of culture, if you like – the search for the scrolls in the Judean Desert. To be there when it happened – that was really something...
“There were years of building, waves of aliya. Then other things happened, many more conflicts with our neighbours. Today I spend time trying to understand what impels a photographer into extreme circumstances such as war. It’s not a simple subject, it’s an impulse that contradicts the human urge for survival. If I can last a few more years so that I can sit down and write about some of my experiences, I think they would also be of interest to other people.”
Even though he does not see himself as an artist, but as a photographer who “registers what goes on around him”, there is no doubt that Micha Bar-Am’s images are characterized by a wealth of content and form, transforming his oeuvre into the finest photographic art. They are affirmations of a talent for short, sharp reactions to changing situations, and the ability to organize these documents into fascinating compositions in a convincing visual language.
Avraham Eilat