Akram Zaatari is a Lebanese filmmaker, photographer and archivist. He has produced more than forty videos, a dozen books and countless installations of photographic material, all related to themes including excavation, political resistance and the circulation of images.
As one of a handful of young artists to emerge from Lebanon’s television industry, Zaatari has played a significant role in developing the infrastructure of Beirut’s contemporary art scene. As co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation – an artist-driven organisation devoted to the research and study of photography in the region – he has made invaluable contributions to preservation and archival practice.
Akram Zaatari’s film Twenty-Eight Nights and a Poem explores the work of photographer Hashem el Madani, who has run a commercial photography studio in southern Lebanon for the last five decades. The film examines the changing sites, status and function of photographic practice and preservation though various analogue and digital media.
Akram Zaatari: Photographs, YouTube and memory
The Lebanese artist introduces his work in film and photography
