Akram
Zaatari

Akram Zaatari has produced more than fifty films and videos, a dozen books, and countless installations of photographic material, all sharing an interest in writing histories, pursuing a range of interconnected themes, subjects, and practices related to excavation, political resistance, the lives of former militants, the legacy of an exhausted left, the circulation of images in times of war, and the play of tenses inherent to various letters that have been lost, found, buried, discovered, or otherwise delayed in reaching their destinations. Zaatari has played a critical role in developing the formal, intellectual, and institutional infrastructure of Beirut’s contemporary art scene. He was one of a handful of young artists who emerged from the delirious but short-lived era of experimentation in Lebanon’s television industry, which was radically reorganized after the country’s civil war. As a co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation, a groundbreaking, artist-driven organization devoted to the research and study of photography in the Arab world, he has made invaluable and uncompromising contributions to the wider discourse on preservation and archival practice.

Zaatari’s work has been featured at Documenta13 in 2012. He represented Lebanon at the Venice Biennial in 2013. His films include three features: The Landing (2019), Twenty-Eight Nights and A Poem (2015) and This Day (2003). His work is part of institutional collections such as Art Jameel, Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum NY and Abu Dhabi, Hammer Museum, Moderna Museet, K21, MACBA, MMCA Seoul, MoMA, Sharjah Art Foundation, Serralves Foundation, Tate Modern, and Walker Art Center.

Akram Zaatari was a fellow of the Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2010 and will be coming to Berlin in October 2022 and March / April 2023 as a DAAD Arts & Media fellow.