Akram Zaatari’s practice extends from the Arab Film Foundation, which he co-founded with his colleagues and photographers. Fouad Elkoury and Samer Mohdad in 1997. Dedicating their efforts to retrieve and preserve images from the ongoing events of the Middle-Eastern conflict and the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the aim of this foundation was to re-document the visual history among individuals, damaged by extreme violence and political instability. By collecting anonymous photographs, films and stories from the past, Zaatari continues to hold on to the foundation’s original premise to illuminate on individual memories and desires that were ignored by the state’s official history. Zaatari seeks to resist against ‘collective misrepresentations’ in an attempt to ‘diversify’ and explore a sense of longing from loss and departure with the loved ones.
