Un-Dividing History, 2017

These cyanotypes merge two bodies of work from a collection which is no longer in the Arab Image Foundation’s custody, and which consisted of glass plates of Khalil Raad, a photographer from Jerusalem, and those of Yacov Ben Dov, a Zionist filmmaker and photographer of Ukrainian descent. Raad and Ben Dov shared the same city, Jerusalem, but belonged to completely different universes. Zaatari conceived this series as a statement against partitioning history. As the glass plates were stored against each other for over 50 years in the same position, each plate was contaminated by the plate it was leaning against. The cyanotypes depict traces of a world impressed onto another and speak of the ineluctable shared history of Palestine and Israel, safeguarded by a passionate collector.

Faces to Faces, 2017

What appear to be double exposures are photographic close-ups of glass plates that represent portraits made by Tripoli-based photographer Antranick Anouchian in the early 1940s. These plates, found by collector Mohsen Yammine, were stuck to one another. 

Zaatari selected the pairs of negatives with glass plates representing French soldiers paired with others showing individuals, random citizens from Tripoli. These photographs depict the faces of French military men in uniforms, seen through the portraits of the community they governed at the time.