Testimonies from a Troubled Land

A burning olive tree on Remembrance Day. Children sliding down the roof of a bomb shelter a few kilometres from Gaza. Families sleeping on the floor of a Ramat Gan underground station as missiles fall overhead. An 81-year-old farmer from Kibbutz Nir Oz, back in his potato fields two months after 482 days in captivity, arms open to the sky. 

Testimonies from a Troubled Land brings to London a selection of work from Local Testimony's 2025 exhibition in Israel. Local Testimony is Israel's leading annual exhibition of photojournalism and documentary photography, shown each year at MUZA, Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. 

These photographs cover the past two years: the aftermath of 7 October and the war in Gaza, missile strikes from Iran, hostage families waiting and campaigning, mass protests in Tel Aviv, daily survival in Gaza and rising violence in the West Bank.  

The images go past the headlines to the people living through them, showing grief, fear, stubborn normality and, now and then, hope. The exhibition doesn't ask you to agree with any one view. It asks you to look closely and stay with what you see. 

The exhibition includes work by Tomer Appelbaum, Ilan Ben Yehuda, Itay Cohen, Chaim Goldberg, Naama Grynbaum, Ziv Koren, Maya Meshel, Itai Ron, Avishag Shaar-Yashuv, Oren Ziv, Ohad Zwigenberg and many others, along with video work documenting the war in Gaza.