Letter to a Refusing Pilot

Installation with, on one side, a film projected on a wall, and on the other, a lone cinema seat next to a film projector showing scenes of aerial attacks on Lebanon.

Through the compilation of diverse media archives — television, radio, and press photography — and his personal notes written when he was a teenager, Zaatari brings us back to the moment when Israel invaded his hometown in 1982. The video installation Letter to a Refusing Pilot (2013) evokes a different episode of this invasion. Taking inspiration from Letters to a German Friend (1943–45) by Albert Camus, Zaatari reflects on the acts of compassion and resistance performed by an Israeli pilot who refused to bomb a public school in Saida.

— Source: What Does the Image Stand For? exhibition text, by Ami Barak