Akram Zaatari
Mini Album / Summer 1982 | 2007
C-prints. 19 prints of 28 x 24 cm each. Ed.2/5+1AP
During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Akram Zaatari photographed bombings, destroyed buildings, political signs and military vehicles. At 16 years old, the artist was learning photography using his father’s Kiev 35mm camera and always had it loaded and ready. Zaatari chose 31 prints to put in a small souvenir photo album, which was later shown in his video documentary project entitled “This Day” (86 min, 2003), where he examines the first documents he took during the Israeli invasion. Also included in this album are six pictures depicting the bombing of a Palestinian base on Mar Elias hill, taken from the balcony of his parents’ apartment in Saida on the first day of the invasion, forming a large panorama, “Saida, June 6, 1982”, which is also part of the Saradar Collection.
Reference AZ-PH-2007-A(1-19)
Biography of the artist
Born in Saida, Lebanon. 1966
Works and Lives in Beirut
Zaatari’s practice is tied to the practice of collecting. His work reflects on the shifting nature of borders and the production and circulation of images in the context of the current political divisions in the Middle East. His videos and photographic installations look into technologies of image production and communication and the notions of surveillance, exploring the way different media apparatuses get employed in the service of power, resistance, and memory.
As co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation, Zaatari is deeply invested in examining how photography served to shape notions of aesthetics, postures and social codes,
therefore looking at the present through a wealth of past photographic records from the Middle East.
Zaatari has been focusing since 1999 on the archive of Studio Shehrazade in Saida (Lebanon) studying, indexing, and presenting the work of photographer Hashem el Madani (1928 -) as a register of social relationships and of photographic practices.
He is author of more than 40 videos such as 28 Nights and a Poem (2015), Letter to a Refusing Pilot (2013), Tomorrow everything will be alright (2010), Nature Morte (2008), In this House (2005), This Day (2003), All is well on the Border (1997). Part of his video work addressed the practice of sex in Lebanon’s current society, particularly in The End of Time (2013), Crazy of You (1997) and How I Love You (2001).
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