For the seventh year in a row, the REA Photography House has announced the awarding of its scholarship program: the 2015 winner is Yael Zachor, who is currently completing her studies at Hadassah College in Jerusalem’s Photographic Communication Department.

Zachor’s final project is an exploration of conventional notions of beauty, expressed through landscapes of the unlovely city of Beersheva juxtaposed against portraits of contestants in local beauty pageants.

“… I look at scenarios from the world of beauty as defined by this city, and try to understand how location and space affect and shape the prevailing cultural and social norms”.

“The discrepancy between the physical nature of the place [Beersheva], Zionist ideology, and the local population, has given rise to another category [of beauty], comprised of unique ingredients. These components express themselves through local beauty pageants”.

“The contests receive institutional support that stems from the desire to create a cohesive regional culture which is different and unique to the Negev”.

Located in Tel Aviv, the REA Photography House — which also goes by the name The Print House — was established to serve the needs of professional art photographers, producing  high quality, long lasting prints using the most up-to-date equipment and technologies, and offering fine art papers and albums, and museum-standard mounting and framing services.

REA works with major Israeli artists and also encourages promising young Israeli artists by awarding a scholarship to higher-education students exhibiting final projects.

The winners receive prints of their final project and one images will be entered into the REA collection. Works by the eight finalists will be exhibited in a group show at Tel Aviv’s Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art.

For more information about visit The Print House website and the REA Photography House page on Facebook.