Akram Zaatari
Saida. June 6, 1982
1982-2006
| Installation: Composite image: C- print mounted on aluminum
dibond | 125x250 cm & Video, sound, 4 minute loop
Earth of Endless Secrets
2006
| Stack of 4000 posters: offset print on paper | 60x75x55
cm
Saida. June 6, 1982 revisits the first pictures taken by
the artist while learning to use his father’s Kiev camera.
Only sixteen years of age then, Zaatari's debut to photography
began with his spontaneous shooting of the explosions and
military operations of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in
1982. On the very first day of the invasion, Akram Zaatari
captured, by chance, photographs of a formidable air raid.
The composite image on view is a reconstruction based on six
photographs of the blasts that took place during that raid.
Their compounding into one picture communicates the desire
to seize the essence of the explosions - the urge to bear
witness to the dramatic intensity of the colour and sound
of real-life fireworks.
Accompanying the massive print is a loop video of Zaatari's
camera roving over these photographs overlaid with the deafening
sound of fierce explosions.
Whereas Saida. June 6, 1982 revolves around the experience
of war, Earth of Endless Secrets deals with its remnants in
the present. Visitors are encouraged to take home with them
a poster of a missile shell as a keepsake to remember the
war with.
Souvenirs from the Front
2007
| C-prints mounted on aluminum dibond | 30x40 cm
Souvenirs
from the Front is part of a project that involves the collecting
of and researching into personal documents which testify to
war and which convey its multiple facets, most notably the
imprints left by war on the memory of those who witness it.
On exhibit are photographs of a variety of stones and withered
plants. These were collected by a former member of the secular
Lebanese resistance named Ali Hashisho, who, for many years,
along with his military group carried out operations against
the Israeli army occupying the South. Hashisho brought the
pictured stones and plants back with him from the front as
mementos, reminders of his past as a resistance fighter.
Born in Lebanon in 1966, Akram Zaatari is a conceptual artist
and curator who lives and works in Beirut. He is the author
of more than 30 videos and video installations. Zaatari is
a founding member of the Arab Image Foundation, a non-profit
association which aims to promote photography in the Middle
East and North Africa by locating, collecting, and preserving
the region's photographic heritage. Recently, he has been
developing his own research-based projects which deal with
the photograph as a testament to memory.
In the works on display, Akram Zaatari conveys a history that
is based on incommunicable, personal experiences derived from
daily life rather than official representations and narratives.
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