Paul Weinberg’s photographic exhibition titled ‘Dear Edward’ opened at the South African Jewish Museum on 27 May 2013.

The exhibition and book of the same title, is a personal journey into Weinberg’s family archives and explores the past as he retrace’s his family footprints in South Africa. Taking him to small towns in the interior of South Africa where the family eventually found a niche for themselves in the hotel trade. The photographs are in the form of postcards to his great-grandfather Edward and are a visual narrative of this journey as he piece’s the jigsaw of his family’s footprints together. A sub theme of the exhibition and book is a story of the ‘old hotel’ which was at one point so central and dynamic in the lives of many of these small towns. Weinberg revisit’s these hotels and explore their whereabouts, and their evolution.

Weaving history, historiographies, memoir, archive into a personal pilgrimage, Weinberg says, ‘I hope to offer insights and perspectives on a family who made this country their ‘adopted home’. Through the metaphor of the postcard this book sets up a dialogue between my great-grandfather, the past, the present, and asks important questions about who writes history, and who is left out.”

Paul Weinberg is a South African born photographer with a strong commitment to the land and its people. His extensive body of work explores people, life and culture. His other exhibitions and projects reflect human rights issues, environment, development, and more recently, the field of HIV and AIDS.