1) Twenty-Eight Nights and a Poem; 2) Studio Scheherazade

Zaatari is an artist and curator who lives and works in Beirut and explores the Lebanese postwar condition through his artistic practice. He helped to set up the Arab Image Foundation in 1997. Part of Zaatari's project for the Foundation is to create an archive of Lebanese photographic practice, especially through his research on the photographer Hashem El Madani. Madani claims to have photographed 90% of the population of Saida at his studio, Studio Shehrazade, which forms a record not only of social reality but social aspirations. Akram Zaatari has immersed himself in Madani’s story, gathering an oral history through the stories the photographer has shared with him, recorded in Studio Practices. In Twenty-Eight Nights and a Poem Zaatari builds on Studio practices, assembling elements from the ‘archaeological site’ of Studio Shehrazade. These works were presented by the Art Fund through Art Fund International.