.webp)
Mass Struggle by Akram Zaatari
Discover Mass Struggle by artist Akram Zaatari, created especially for the Art Explora Festival. Invited by Amanda Abi Khalil and Danielle Makhoul - curators associated with the tour - the artist presents a work that takes the form of the Mediterranean Sea. Mass Struggle highlights the region's exhaustion in the face of constant human and commercial flows.
Address
Riva Sette Martiri, Venice, Italy
Mass struggle, Akram Zaatari, 2024
Tire rubber
6159 x 2924 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Mapped as a void in most cartographies, the Mediterranean stretches out beneath our feet as overwhelming dark matter. Islands turned into negative space. This floor piece conceived by Akram Zaatari emerges as a comment on the excessive use of this sea in navigation routes, from cargo commutes and tourist cruises to migratory crossings, and as a denunciation to its abuse as a dump of sewage and polluting wastes. Mass Struggle fills the space with a gummy mass that challenges the sensorial perception of these waters, and records traces of wear as people are invited to step on it. As such, individual and collective impact on this challenged ecosystem is given a form.
Martina Barbon
Akram Zaatari
Born in 1966 in Saïda, Lebanon, he lives and works in Beirut. Akram Zaatari is a major figure on Lebanon's contemporary art scene. Oscillating between reality and fiction, his films and video installations feature archival images, testimonies and situations representative of living conditions in Lebanon. Co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation, he has made an invaluable and uncompromising contribution to the general discourse on the preservation and practice of archives. He represented Lebanon at the 55th Venice Art Biennale (2013). His work has been presented in major artistic contexts such as documenta 13 (2012) and the Liverpool Biennial (2012).
Jean-Christophe Lett
