In this interview, artist Akram Zaatari reflects on his longstanding work with photographic heritage in the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab diaspora, and considers the different ways in which he has used photographs to illuminate and unfold historical truths. Charting divergencies and disagreements around issues of preservation that have arisen over the years within the Arab Image Foundation (of which he is one of the founders), Zaatari points out radical gestures of preservation that return photographs to the ‘living tissue’, the ‘larger ecosystem’ and a set of affective relations from which they had become detached. The far-ranging metaphor of archaeology that the artist employs to illuminate his practice also lends itself to describe the destructive nature of certain acts of collecting premised on ‘excessive accumulation’, of which the pillage of the archaeological heritage in the Middle East and North Africa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is an emblematic example. Collecting, however, is also a tool for writing history and the displacement of photographs serves as a crucial step to reconfigure them within new narratives. Attentive to the changing nature of photographic archives, Zaatari frees photographs from fixed and prescribed readings, bringing new perspectives to bear on them without necessarily denying those former interpretations. Additional layers of historical information can be found nestling in details accidentally captured by the camera's lens, in signs of material damage or ‘worthy’ defects. In Zaatari’s hands, digital technologies are used to emphasize, not to occlude the traces of these material histories. In the folds of the archives, hidden narratives wait to be revealed and unfolded under the loving gaze of the artist, collector and historian.

中文翻译：

---

历史和摄影记忆

在这次采访中，艺术家 Akram Zaatari 回顾了他在中东、北非和阿拉伯侨民的摄影遗产方面的长期工作，并考虑了他使用照片来阐明和揭示历史真相的不同方式。Zaatari 描绘了多年来围绕阿拉伯图像基金会（他是该基金会的创始人之一）内部出现的保存问题的分歧和分歧，指出了激进的保存姿态，将照片返回到“活组织”，即“更大的组织”。生态系统”和一组情感关系，他们已经从中分离出来。艺术家用来阐明他的实践的广泛的考古学隐喻也有助于描述某些以“过度积累”为前提的收藏行为的破坏性，其中18世纪末19世纪初对中东和北非考古遗产的掠夺就是一个典型的例子。然而，收集也是书写历史的工具，照片的置换是在新的叙事中重新配置它们的关键步骤。Zaatari 关注摄影档案不断变化的性质，将照片从固定和规定的阅读中解放出来，为它们带来新的视角，而不必否认那些以前的解释。在相机镜头意外捕捉到的细节、材料损坏或“有价值”缺陷的迹象中，可以发现更多的历史信息层。在 Zaatari 的手中，数字技术被用来强调而不是遮挡这些物质历史的痕迹。在档案馆的褶皱中，