A CONVERSATION WITH AKRAM ZAATARI
In November 2005, I had the privilege of going to Beirut to participate in Homeworks III, a forum on cultural practices. The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts known as Ashkal Alwan, produces this week-long biennial event that comprises lectures, discussion panels, video screenings, performances and book launches. Over two hundred expatriate Lebanese and non-Lebanese from around the globe, converged on Beirut to witness and be part of a cultural movement paving the way for a different way of seeing and saying. A feature of Homeworks III was without a doubt the way in which it was able to defy multi-layered surveillance, censorship, limited resources and language barriers so seamlessly and with grace. Straddling a war-torn past which still holds unresolved questions, an increasingly volatile present marked by the open and insistent elimination of writers and intellectuals, unbridled religious fervour and economic uncertainty, Lebanese and some non-Lebanese artists showcased their intellectual rigor and insight with what I could only describe as elegant resilience. It was in such an atmosphere that I watched and negotiated the veiled but disquieting silences of Akram Zaatari’s latest work ‘In This House’.
‘In this House’ (2004) is a 30 minute film which is able to reflect a feature of the Lebanese character that has always endeared itself to me despite its frustrating almost raw optimism—and I include myself here. Ever since I left Lebanon, fleeing with my parents from our war-torn neighbourhood in Beirut, I watched in Australia for fifteen years the endless news reports of the myriad ways the Lebanese people were entrusted with the task of resolving the historical discord of the Middle East region on impromptu battle fields and with their bodies... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline