Akram Zaatari

Akram Zaatari (born in 1966 in Sidon, Lebanon)  is a photographer, filmmaker, curator, and archivist. He co-founded the Arab Image Foundation in 1997.  

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. 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.

### *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. 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.  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
* *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)
**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)

## Exhibitions 
### Selected Solo Exhibitions 
* Darat al Funun, The Kahlid Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan, 1999
* *Unfolding*, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany, 2004
* *Mapping Sitting*. *On Portraiture and Photography,* in collaboration with Walid Raad, Centre Pour l'Image Contemporaine, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004
* *Hashem el Madani: Pomenade and Studio Practices*, La CaixaForum, Barcelona, Spain, 2006
* *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
* *Letter to A Refusing Pilot*, Lebanon Pavilion, 55th International Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 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

## References