Akram Zaatari

Akram Zaatari was born in 1966, in Sidon, Lebanon and currently lives and works in Beirut. Zaatari has developed an interdisciplinary practice that combines the roles of image-maker, archivist, curator, and critical theorist. His work is concerned with notions of desire, resistance, memory, and with the production and circulation of images during wartime. Zaatari is especially interested in the Lebanese postwar condition, particularly the televised mediation of territorial conflicts and wars, and the logic of religious and national resistance. In addition to his own archival work, Akram Zaatari is a founding member of the Arab Image Foundation, which aims to collect, study and disseminate the photographic heritage of Middle East, North Africa, and the Arab diaspora.

Recent solo exhibitions have included: Akram Zaatari: Against Photography. Annotated History of the Arab Image Foundation, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) (2017); Double Take: Akram Zaatari and the Arab Image Foundation, National Portrait Gallery, London (2017); Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright, Galpão VB | Associação Cultural Videobrasil, São Paulo (2016); This Day at Ten, Kunsthaus Zürich (2016); The Archaeology of Rumour, British School at Rome (BSR), Rome (2016); Unfolding, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2015); Akram Zaatari: The End of Time, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto (2014); and Projects 100: Akram Zaatari, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (2013). Zaatari has also participated in the following biennials: 14. İstanbul Bienali, Turkey (2015); Yokohama Triennale 2014; dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel (2013); Lebanese Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennial (2013); Lebanese Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennial (2007); 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006); 6th Gwangju Biennale (2006); 27a Bienal de São Paulo (2006), among others.