Marcio Harum and Eduardo de Jesus give an overview of the participation of Lebanese artists in Festival editions, highlighting the works of Akram Zaatari, Rabih Mroué and Walid Raad selected for Unerasable memories – a historic look at the Videobrasil Collection (2014). Zaatari was the first Lebanese ever featured in the Festival, in the 11th edition (1996). After stints in two other Festival editions, he and Christine Tohme co-curated Possible Narratives – Art Practices in Lebanon, a parallel show held during the 14th edition (2003) and featuring productions by nine Lebanese artists, among them Walid Raad’s performance-lecture The Loudest Muttering Is Over: Documents from the Atlas Group Archive (2003). That same Festival featured a retrospective of Zaatari’s work, and in the competitive show, Rabih Mroué showed his Face A Face B (2002). In the following edition, Zaatari presented In This House (2005), which, Agustín Pérez Rubio selected for Unerasable Memories, alongside pieces by Raad and Mroué. In his statement, Eduardo de Jesus discusses unique aspects to each of these three pieces, whose common points include the use of documents and registers in reformulating history, the possibility of fictionalizing memory, and personal memories of the Lebanese Civil War. According to Harum, archive and history are essential to the productions of artists from that region.
- More about Akram Zaatari in Collection
- More about Eduardo de Jesus in Collection
- More about Rabih Mroué in Collection
- More about Walid Raad in Collection
- Further info on Face A Face B in Collection
- Further info on In This House in Collection
- Further info on The Loudest Muttering is Over: Documents From The Atlas Group Archive in Collection