Akram Zaatari

Akram Zaatari (born in 1966 in Sidon, Lebanon)  is a photographer, filmmaker, curator, and archivist. Central to his work is Lebanon, and other regions in the Middle East, during the years of the civil war and its aftermath. In 2013 Zaatari represented Lebanon at the 55th Venice Biennale. He has held many exhibitions over the past two decades and has public collections across the globe. He co-founded the Arab Image Foundation in 1997.

## Biography

Zaatari grew up in Saida, during the Israeli occupation. He began taking photographs at a young age, which are continuously featured in his works. The photos he took at the age of 16 from his balcony on the first day of the Israeli invasion are featured in his short film _Saida June 6th 1982_.

He attended the American University of Beirut, where he studied architecture. He obtained his MA in media studies at The New School in New York. Zaatari worked in television at the start of his professional career. He was hired in 1995 at Future TV as executive producer for a television program. In 1997 Zaatari co-founded the Arab Image Foundation with photographers Fouad Elkoury and Samer Mohdad.

### _Hashem el Madani_

This is a project which Zaatari began in 1999 after coming across Madani's photographs. Madani was a studio owner in Saida from 1948 until his death in 2017. He reportedly photographed 90% of the towns inhabitants over five decades.  Zaatari was interested in the photos that captured his home city and began working with Madani in archiving his photography. Since then, Zaatari has displayed Madani's photographs at several galleries, including The Photographers' Gallery and Tate Modern. He has also published books as part of the Hashem el Madani project.

### _This Day_

This is a video essay shot in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, in 2003. It is an open-ended documentary that examines different modes of access to information: travel, television, the Internet. The film is about the ordinary images of the Middle East within the context of war. In an interview, Zaatari describes this work as being about what pushes one to record ordinary daily things, which may not be usually historically documented. It links to the artist's wider interest in time capsules.

### _Letter to a Refusing Pilot_

The installation was featured at the 55th Venice Biennial in 2013, where Zaatari represented Lebanon. The installation is about a pilot, Hagai Tamir, who refuses to bomb a school in Sidon.  Whilst growing up in Sidon, Zaatari heard rumours about the refusing pilot and after some years the identity of the pilot was revealed to him. _Letter to a Refusing Pilo_t uses a combination of visual techniques, enhancing their message through the placement of the individual elements It uses archival material like photos, videos, diary entries, newspaper cutouts. This work is about revisiting and reconstructing the past in a way that deviates from the dominant historical narratives.

## Selected Publications

- _The Vehicle: picturing moments of transition in a modernising society_ (the Arab Image Foundation and Mind the Gap, 1999)
- _Map Sitting: On Portraiture and Photography. A Project by Walid Raad and Akram Zaatari_ (the Arab Image foundation, and Mind the gap, 2002)
- _Hashem el Madani: Studio Practices. An Ongoing Project by Akram Zaatari_ ( the Arab Image Foundation, Mind the gap, and The Photographers' Gallery, 2004)
- _Hashem el Madani: Promenades and Studio Practices_ (La Caixa Forum, 2007)
- _Akraam Zaatari: Earth of Endless Secrets_ (Portikus, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, and the Beirut Art Centre, 2009)
- _Conversation with an Imagined Israeli Filmmaker Named Avi Mograbi_ (Published in English by Sternberg Press, Laboratoire d'Aubervilliers, 2012)
- _Time Capsule Kassel_ (Mouse Publishing, 2014)
- _All Is Well_ (Agnes Etherington Art Center, and The Carleton University Art Gallery, 2014)
- _Akram Zaatari. Against Photography_ (MACBA, 2017)
- _Rifat Chadirji: Building Index_ (Arab Image Foundation, and Kaph Books, 2018)

## Awards

- Jury Award awarded by Video Lisboa, Lisbon (2001)
- Gran Award awarded by Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts, Ismailia, Egypt (2002)
- Prix Son awarded by Festival International de Cinema de Marseille, France (2004)
- 1st Prize awarded by FAIR PLAY Video Art Festival, Berlin (2005)
- Grand Prize from the Associação Culture Videobrasil (2011)
- 4th Yanghyun Prize (2011)

## Filmography

- _The Fountain_ (1994)
- _Hadiyeh_ (1995)
- _Countdown_ (1995)
- _Reflection_ (1995)
- _Teach Me_ (1996)
- _All is Well on the Border_(1997)
- _Majnounak (Crazy of You)_ (1997)
- _Red Chewing Gum_ (2000)
- _How I Love You_ (2001)
- _Transit Visa_ (2001)
- _Baalbeck_ (2001)
- _This Day_ (2003)
- _In This House_ (2004)
- _Nature Morte_ (2008)
- _Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright_ (2010)
- _Dance to the End of Love_ (2011)
- _Letter to a Refusing Pilot_ (20113)
- _Twenty-Eight Nights and a Poem_ (2015)
- _On Photography, Dispossession and Times of Struggle_ (2017)
- _The Script_ (2018)
- _The Landing_ (2019)

### Selected Solo Exhibitions

- Darat al Funun, The Kahlid Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan, 1999
- The Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt, 2000
- _Mapping Sitting_. _On Portraiture and Photography,_ in collaboration with Walid Raad, SK Die Photographische Sammlung, Cologne, Germany, 2002
- _Unfolding_, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany, 2004
- _Mapping Sitting_. _On Portraiture and Photography,_ in collaboration with Walid Raad, Centre Pour l'Image Contemporaine, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004
- _Mapping Sitting_. _On Portraiture and Photography,_ in collaboration with Walid Raad, Grey Art Gallery, New York, USA, 2005
- _Hashem el Madani: Pomenade and Studio Practices_, La CaixaForum, Barcelona, Spain, 2006
- _ART Statements_, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 2007
- _Earth of Endless Secrets_, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon, 2009
- _Akram Zaatar_i, Laboratories of Aubervilliers, Aubervilliers, France, 2010
- _Composition for Two Wings_, Kunsternes Hus, Oslo, Norway, 2011
- _This Day_, Moderna Galerija Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2011
- _This Day at Ten_, Magasin - Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Grenoble, France, 2012
- _Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright_, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2012
- _The End_, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany, 2012
- _The Uneasy Subject,_ MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico, 2012
- _Letter to A Refusing Pilot_, Lebanon Pavilion, 55th International Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2013
- _Project 100: Akram Zaatari_, MoMA, New York, USA, 2013
- _This Day at Ten_, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon, 2013
- _All is Well_, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston University, Ontario, Canada, 2013
- _Akram Zaatari_, SALT, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014
- _This Day at Ten_, WIELS: Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, Belgium, 2014
- _Akram Zaatari: The End of Time_, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, 2014
- _Unfolding_, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, 2015

### Selected Group Exhibitions

- _Haunted by Detail_, Die Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2002
- _SENI_, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2004
- _Art Now in Lebanon_, Darat al Funun, The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan, 2008
- _Closer_, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon, 2009
- _Mapping Subjectivity_, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, 2011
- _Unboxing Photographs. Working in the Photo Archive_, Kunstbibliothek, Berlin, Germany, 2018
- _Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography_, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany, 2020
- _History Tales. Fact and Fiction in History Painting_, Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria, 2023