Production of images for the artist’s photographic narratives

Akram Zaatari’s expansive work on photography and the practice of collecting takes an archaeological approach to the medium, digging into the past, resurfacing with new narratives and resituating them in the contemporary. His exhibition The Third Window at Sfeir-Semler gallery features eight photographs taken by Osman Hamdi Bey in 1887 at Boustan al Maghara in Ayyaa’, Saida, following the excavation of 19 sarcophagi from the Phoenician period, most of which were displayed temporarily in this garden before they left to Constantinople, where they remain until this day. These photographs represent the only record of these finds prior to their departure.

-scope Ateliers has helped the artist on the elaboration his photographic narrative for The Third Window, a term he borrows from Paul Virilio who uses it in reference to television broadcast, a frame that allows a glimpse into a parallel life.