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Rosanna Mclaughlin
Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Articles Available Online


The Pious and the Pommery

Essay

Issue No. 18

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

Issue No. 18

I.   Where is the champagne? On second thoughts this is not entirely the right question. The champagne is in the ice trough, on...

Essay

April 2019

Ariana and the Lesbian Narcissus

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Essay

April 2019

‘Avoid me not!’ ‘Avoid me not!’                                   Narcissus   Let me describe a GIF I’ve been watching. A lot....

Akram Zaatari was born in Saida, Lebanon in 1966 While growing up, armed conflict and a perpetual crisis loomed over everyday life At a young age he began documenting life in Saida under Israeli occupation, taking photographs and collecting documents and objects specific to the culture and political landscape of the time Zaatari revisited some of these documents, oral histories and photographs in the installation ‘Letter to a Refusing Pilot’, while representing Lebanon at the 55th Venice Biennial in 2013 The work – which consists of a 34-minute video, a single cinema chair and a 16mm projection of Zaatari’s documentation of the Israeli military operations in Saida in 1982 – reflects on a story about an Israeli pilot, who, according to rumour, refused to bomb a school Taking the rumour as a starting point, ‘Letter to a Refusing Pilot’ explores the circulation of images and the entangled histories of the Middle East The work clouds the distinction between documentary and fiction, a dichotomy that Zaatari has always refused to accept   I came across Zaatari’s work 10 years ago, while exploring cinematic responses to the Lebanese War from within the Beirut art scene I found his video and photography-based works highly conceptual yet deeply rooted in the physicality of objects and the time in which they are made Works such as Saida June 6th, 1982 (2006), a composite of six photographs from the first day of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, show his forensic eye for detail The photographs were taken when Zaatari was 16 years old, from the balcony of his parents’ home Behind the apartment blocks, a series of explosion dominate the landscape   Zaatari has created an artistic language in which he spotlights the complex histories of the Arab world, and investigates visual culture in times of conflict Taking photography as the starting point of his work, he invites the viewer to look deeper into the life of images, into their histories and geographical trajectories He has also played a crucial role in shaping the intellectual and institutional framework of the Lebanese contemporary art scene, and contributed to the archival turn

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Contributor

July 2016

Rosanna Mclaughlin is an editor at The White Review.

Ten Years at Garage Moscow

Art Review

November 2018

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art Review

November 2018

When I arrive in Moscow, I am picked up from the airport by Roman, a patriotic taxi driver sent to collect me courtesy of...
Becoming Alice Neel

Art

August 2017

Rosanna Mclaughlin

Art

August 2017

From the first time I saw Alice Neel’s portraits, I wanted to see the world as she did. Neel was the Matisse of the...

READ NEXT

feature

July 2013

Love Dog

Masha Tupitsyn

feature

July 2013

11 22 2011 – LOVE DOG     For months Hamlet has been floating around. Its book covers popping...

poetry

September 2012

Letter from a New City to an Old Friend

Cutter Streeby

poetry

September 2012

Letter from a New City to an Old Friend     [SEAside          Gra-                         –i.m. Ronny Burhop 1987-2010                                                                      ffiti]...

Interview

Issue No. 18

Interview with Eileen Myles

Maria Dimitrova

Interview

Issue No. 18

I sat across from Eileen Myles at a large empty table in her London publisher’s office a few hours...

 

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