Akram Zaatari's Queer Radical Hope: On Being a Curious Archivist/Artist

Authors

  • Dina Georgis University of Toronto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1234/fa.v0i69.118

Keywords:

Aesthetics, Queer, Archive, Affect, Radical Hope, War, Lebanon

Abstract

Critical of Lebanese officialdom's response to the civil war, Akram Zaatari is among a group of war-generation artists have been aesthetically archiving the war. Interested in unearthing and salvaging the forgotten or queer remains of war, the aesthetic interventions of Akram Zaatari, on whom this paper will focus, document and archive™ the quotidian, the discrepant and the discarded. Important to his aesthetic practice is an intimacy with the objects he collects for his creations. What brings him to his objects is not so much an intention or a plan, but a queer curiosity, which sends him on a journey of discovery to unearth buried and untold pasts. Queer here is not defined through identity but the traces of dangerous and libidinal relationalities that set the stage for radical hope and political repair.

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Published

2016-09-10

How to Cite

Georgis, D. (2016). Akram Zaatari’s Queer Radical Hope: On Being a Curious Archivist/Artist. Free Associations, (69), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1234/fa.v0i69.118

Issue

No. 69 (2016)

Section

Articles

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