Akram Zaatari is a Lebanese interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker and photographer. He is also founder of the Arab Image Foundation, that aims to collect, preserve and study photographs from the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab diaspora. The archives of the Foundation were partially damaged during the Beirut port blast in August 2020. The focus of Zaatari’s production is post-war Lebanon and the circulation of images during war time, mapping different ways of recording war. 

The acquired work belongs to YM series, that consists of six paintings that represent graphic maps of the Mediterranean Sea (YM in Phoenician), as a place of diffusion of languages, cultural exchange, trade, immigration. The title of the artworks in the series refer to Phoenician language, that sound and mean the same in Arabic, and they are followed by the English translation.

[BL ʿT BL KTBT BL ʾDM] Before Time Before Alphabet Before Adam
[YM KTBT] Alphabet Sea photo
[ʾRṢ YM] Sea Land
[ʿL YM] On Sea
[MŠʾ MʿRB] East West
[YM DM] Bloody sea