Men's Hat Shop, Jerusalem 1979

Editor: Here we have Jerome Liebling's "Men's Hat Shop, Jerusalem" from 1979, a photograph that immediately strikes me with its somewhat hazy and ethereal atmosphere. It almost feels like a memory. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The hats, staged almost like characters within the dusty vitrine, immediately call to mind complex layers of identity and belonging. It was taken during a period of intense political and social change in the Middle East, so what narratives of masculinity, cultural heritage, and perhaps even displacement might be embodied by these hats on display? Editor: Displacement? How so? Curator: Well, consider the hat as a symbol. For centuries it has communicated social standing, profession, religious affiliation and even political alignment. To see these signifiers isolated in a shop window within the contested space of Jerusalem encourages questions around the role of such symbols in constructing, negotiating, and even contesting identities within shifting geopolitical landscapes. What happens when such a loaded object, intended to mark someone *in*, actually marks them *out*, in a place like Jerusalem in the late 70s? Editor: That's a compelling point; I hadn’t considered the deeper symbolism embedded in something as seemingly simple as a hat. The fact that they are behind glass also seems significant. Curator: Precisely! The glass creates a literal barrier, a sense of separation. But also, the reflections… What stories might these reflections be trying to tell us about the context just beyond the frame of the image? About the complex realities faced by men in Jerusalem at that time? Editor: This has definitely made me reconsider street photography. I’ll be thinking about the image’s layers of meaning long after this tour. Curator: And that’s the beauty of art: its capacity to provoke ongoing reflection.