Akram Zaatari. Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright

Akram Zaatari (b. 1966, Saida, Lebanon) explores the role of images, memory, and desire in situations of war. Along with the events of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) and the history of conflict and resistance in the region, Zaatari's work also focuses on representations of sexuality and intimacy.

In Tomorrow Everything Will be Alright (2010), two men separated for ten years express their desire to meet again. A story of longing and reunion, it revisits the legend of Jules Verne's "green ray," a flash of light after sunset or before sunrise that is thought to be a sign of fortune and love for those who see it. Nature Morte (2008) depicts two men in a darkened room as one assembles an explosive device. Red Chewing Gum (2000) takes the form of a "video-letter," in which a narrator revisits an incident with a young gum seller that occurred years earlier on Hamra Street, a commercial and tourist center of Beirut.

Additional works screened explore the mediating role of images and text in personal, archival, and historical narratives. In This House (2005) focuses on a letter written, and then buried in a mortar shell, by a Lebanese resistance fighter. This Day (2003) explores the production and circulation of images across the Middle East. All is Well on the Border (1997) presents three testimonies reflecting the experiences of prisoners held in detention centers during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.

Akram Zaatari
Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright
Kurator: Joao Ribas