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Salome Erni

@ernisalome

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programma maker @extrapoolnl

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www.salomeerni.com

visit my website for insights and contact information

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design by @lea.neuen <3 by @ernisalome

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7 months ago

“Interesting Things” by Salome Erni begins with 59 negatives found in an envelope labelled Des Choses Intéressantes, “Interesting Things”, by Dutch photographer Frank Scholten.

Scholten travelled through Mandate Palestine between 1921 and 1923, leaving behind an archive that raises many questions today. Erni returns to these images through a video essay, a book and an installation, opening a conversation around archives, political looking and the responsibility involved in showing images from the past.

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Born in Switzerland in 2001 and based in the Netherlands, Salome Erni (@ernisalome) is a research-based visual artist. Her work often starts from found images and develops through conversations, collaborations and a close attention to the social and political lives of photographs. by @ernisalome

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4 months ago

TAKE OVER ❤️‍🔥
Salome Erni @ernisalome

“Interesting Things” (installation, video, book)
Des Choses Intéressantes – Interesting Things – is the title of an envelope containing 59 photographic negatives from Palestine. It was labelled this way by Dutch photographer Frank Scholten, who took the images during his travels in the 1920s. Now housed in the Special Collections of Leiden University Libraries (Netherlands), these images reflect colonial perspectives and the appropriating gaze cast upon the so-called "Holy Land". At the same time, they depict scenes of Palestinian life before the Nakba, preserving what is continually threatened with erasure, expulsion, oppression and denial. Salome Ernis work is to be understood as an insight into ongoing conversations. How to look at photographs while witnessing a genocide? by @ernisalome

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10 months ago

Interesting Things goes Biel/Bienne! I am very happy that my work is part of Prix Photoforum 2025 and on show between the 14th of December and the 1st of February 2026 at Photoforum Pasquart (Switzerland).

My installation with the book and the video essay again invites visitors to engage with the archival images from Palestine (1920s). What does it mean to look at these photographs while witnessing the genocide? These images are political, yet ambiguous, made by a Dutch photographer and still stored in the Netherland. I invite to engage with the work and to position oneselve in a web of colonial-imperial violences. We not only watch: Everyone is related to Palestine.

Thank you to the team of @photoforumpasquart for your dedication to bring this work into the space. And thank you to my dear @chaschmerscholucasaege for the beautiful prints.

Pictures Nr. 2 and 5 by @thomas_annaheim_lambert taken in Photoforum Pasquart by @ernisalome

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10 months ago

A journey through 1920s Palestine, documented with a mobile camera. That is what Frank Scholten left the world. A century later, an envelope of his photographs titled “Interesting Things” piqued artist Salome Erni's interest. She transformed them into an art installation, a video essay, and a photobook.

Through this work, Salome reflects on her personal connection to these historical documents amid the horrific events in Gaza, while also capturing viewers’ reactions and feelings to Scholten’s images over the past year.

Her video essay received the 2nd Jury Prize at the Upcoming Filmmakers Festival in Switzerland. Her installation will be exhibited this December at Photoforum Pasquart as part of the Prix Photoforum 2025, and her photobook “Interesting Things” has been nominated for the Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards.

Learn more about Salome’s work at salomeerni.com and browse the Frank Scholten Collection for yourself via the link in bio.

#Research #Art #Photography #Palestine #History #Exhibition #Scholten #MiddleEast #UniversiteitLeiden by @ernisalome

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a year ago

INTERESTING THINGS (Essay)
by Salome Erni @ernisalome
Second Camera: Krystian Furman

Interesting Things is the title of an envelope containing 59 photographic negatives from Palestine in the 1920s. Made by a European photographer, these images reflect colonial perspectives and the appropriating gaze cast upon the so-called "Holy Land". At the same time, they depict what is continually threatened with oppression and erasure. How to look at photographs while witnessing a genocide? taken in Bourbaki Kino/Bar by @ernisalome

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a year ago

How to look at photographs while witnessing a genocide? The work Interesting Things is an insight into ongoing conversations that deal with images from Palestine (1921-1923), which were labelled ‘des choses intéressantes” – Interesting Things – by the photographer. They are now stored at Leiden University Libraries as part of the Special Collections.

I, too, feel connected to these images, existing as matter, as photographs in exile, so close by. That is why, in the video essay, I chose to be present in front of the camera myself: handling the negatives and reciting the voice-over. By inverting the video footage–thereby turning the negatives into positives–the essay engages with the political act of looking. Who gazes at whom, and what power dynamics are at play?

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Stills from the video essay Interesting Things (2025)

Shoutout to @sierociniec for helping me filming, and @albahaabasha for being with me on the journey, always. <3 by @ernisalome

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a year ago

Narratives are not inherent to photographs, but constantly in flux. This is especially apparent in the liminal space between photographs and annotations. What can be retrieved, what meanings can be infused, what should be added?

My publication Interesting Things juxtaposes Frank Scholten’s photographs with words. It appropriates how Frank Scholten captioned his images to create a biblical taxonomy of people and places in the books he published himself, questioning how later archivists and researchers assigned keywords and titles. By inviting collaborators to contribute with their words, the publication deconstructs notions of knowledge and narrations of Euro-Christian hegemony. The book is an attempt to deal collectively with images that are ambiguous, political, historical and urgent at the same time.

Fatima Mahmoud @fatuum_7 reflects on the photographs as a Palestinian in Dutch exile, Bahaa Abu Hussein @albahaabasha responds as a photographer who lives between Umm al-Fahm and Jerusalem, Pascal Studer wrote an essay as a former journalist and scholar, Ehab Hasan @ehabro trained an AI to find more context to the images from the Frank Scholten collection, and visitors of the exhibition A Year in Exile (2025, The Hague, @tabaria.cafe ) left their thoughts as traces on prints.

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Spreads from the book Interesting Things (2025) by @ernisalome

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a year ago

When thinking of Palestine as a land under colonial and imperial rule, a line can be traced, connecting Orientalism’s patronizing depictions of an “empty land” to the current genocide, to the organised destruction of a people. A line runs from Zionism’s urge to erase Palestinian lives from the archives to the scattered photographic heritage today. A line runs from Palestine under British Mandate to the current, ongoing oppression. A line runs from Frank Scholten’s images to today’s gazes.

By looking at Frank Scholten’s photographs, there are many “others” to encounter, and the installation “Interesting Things” provides a space to both explore these relations, and to position oneself in them. We are not mere spectators; everyone is involved in imperialist projects that continue to intersect in Palestine.

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details from the installation at the graduation show @kabkphotography 2025 details installation Interesting Things Salome Erni taken in KABK Photography by @ernisalome

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a year ago

Des choses intéressantes – Interesting Things – is the title of an envelope containing 59 photographic negatives from Palestine. It was labelled this way by Dutch photographer Frank Scholten, who took the images during his travels in the 1920s.

Now housed in the Special Collections of Leiden University Libraries, these images reflect colonial perspectives and the appropriating gaze cast upon the so-called “Holy Land.” At the same time, they depict scenes of Palestinian life before the Nakba, preserving what is continually threatened with erasure.

My work (video essay, publication, installation) is to be understood as insights into conversations that revolve around these photographs. What does it mean to look at these images now, as me, Salome? What does it mean to look at these images that exist as matter, as images in exile, in my neighbouring town, while we all witness a genocide?

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Installation views from the graduation show @kabkphotography 2025

The audience was invited to explore the negatives themselves, choosing a plate and viewing it on the light pad. exhibition view Interesting Things Salome Erni taken in KABK Photography by @ernisalome

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a year ago

Impressed by the work of Salome Erni … ‘Interesting things’—the subject, the sensitive history, the deep engagement and the way she brought it all together.

Nice work at the KABK Graduation Show 2025. @royalacademyofart.thehague.
@ernisalome
#bookdesign #visualart taken in Royal Academy of Art, The Hague by @ernisalome

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a year ago

glimpses into my thesis for @kabkphotography

The Archive of Frank Scholten’s Holy Land – Or: What is to learn from a Dutch traveller’s photographs from Palestine? Or: How to deal with a colonial archive? Or: Why should I look at these images while witnessing a genocide?

My research paper deals with gazes towards others and is an inquiry of the politics of archiving, using the Frank Scholten collection at Leiden University Libraries as a case study. I want to find ways on how to contextualise Scholten’s photographs from Palestine (1921-1923) with a critical approach that is sensitive to postcolonial power structures. The paper traces my questions and responses, my learnings and considerations, my doubts and ambitions while dealing with the Frank Scholten collection.

Accompanying, I present a selection of images from the Frank Scholten collection, titled “some unproblematic photographic illustrations (trees in Palestine 1921-1923)”. by @ernisalome

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a year ago