In the spring of 2009, the exhibition "Constituent Violence – 1947-1950: A visual genealogy of a regime and the transformation of the catastrophe into “a catastrophe from their point of view” was presented by the Zochrot organization. 213 photographs from various archives across the country were displayed as an open archive on wooden shelves in the exhibition space, alongside detailed captions, as part of the effort to reconstruct from the photographs the emergence of Jewish state mechanisms, the destruction of Palestinian society, and the creation and establishment of a dividing line between the disaster of the Palestinians and how it appears to the Jewish residents of the land.
As an integral part of the exhibition's concept as an archive, eight discussion evenings were held during the months the exhibition was displayed, each centered around one of the series of photographs exhibited. The discussion evenings featured anthropologists, historians, geographers, sociologists, architects, and photographers who were invited to observe the photographs from their respective knowledge bases, while also opening the discussion to audience participation. The goal of the discussion evenings was twofold: to activate the archive and share its findings with additional researchers, as well as to highlight the importance of visual materials in writing alternative histories.
The editorial team of the "Sedek" journal decided at the time of the exhibition's presentation to join this archival project and expand the discussion of the materials included in it. Therefore, Issue No. 5 serves as a continuation of that exhibition and of the book published subsequently by Resling, "Constituent Violence – 1947-1950". We recorded, transcribed, and edited the discussion evenings, and excerpts from them are published in this issue alongside the photographs. We mostly retained the various readings of the images in their spoken language to express the conversational, raw, and less formal nature of these meetings, where we saw how visual archival materials serve as a basis for writing history. Alongside the photographs from the exhibition and the transcribed texts from the meetings, we also publish additional readings of those photographs, other images, and accompanying materials that we have collected since as part of the effort to expand the act initiated by the exhibition, to complete it or critique it. Even if it seems for a moment that this issue summarizes the exhibition and the discussion evenings that took place within its framework, its purpose is the opposite – it seeks to continue to evoke the archive that was created as an invaluable source of materials that the current reality necessitates further investigation into. We hope that this current issue of "Sedek" will continue to provoke discussion about these topics.
The exhibition "Constituent Violence – 1947-1950" was curated by Ariella Azoulay, researched by Hadas Shenir, designed by Michael Gordon, and the discussion evenings were led by Ariella Azoulay and Norma Mussih.