While growing up in the middle of a drawn-out civil war, Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari recorded his daily life in a diary. The texts speak of explosions and shelters, but also of the purchase of a car and driving lessons, all of which attests, says the author, to “the contradictions of the everyday life that goes on in conflict areas.” The diary, which also came to include photos, was his first contact with image production. He would later move on to videos and installations that bore the marks of such key subjects as sexuality, politics, and history and which would not only make him a well-known artist, but also one of the main disseminators of a Lebanese production that has revealed names like Walid Raad and Jalal Toufic in the postwar period. This is the first documentary of the Videobrasil Authors Collection conceived for DVD. The work follows the artist in his country of origin and in Brazil, where he worked as cocurator on " Possible Narratives, a show dedicated to the new Lebanese production exhibited at the 14th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival (2003). In this long interview, interlaced with excerpts from works, experiments in video, images of Beirut and Saida, and war photos, Zaatari describes the evolution of his work and speaks on the political and behavioural themes that affect it.
The work is part of Videobrasil Authors Collection series. Further info on this project in our website.
