Osama Zatar Event

DREISECHSFUENF#1, Tag 9

OSAMA ZATAR

curated by Stefanie Koscher

“I was born in 1980 in occupied Palestine. Borders, checkpoints and the feeling of being caged has been a constant experience throughout my life and naturally became a main subject of my artistic work.
My personal struggle against borders increased in the past years. My marriage to an Israeli woman emphasized how separated and segregated Palestinians and Israelis are from each other. My personal fight to break those borders and my struggle to leave Palestine has driven me to concentrate on my artistic work, as a tool of communication with my surrounding, to speak out against these forces.” (Osama Zatar)

Osama Zatar was born in Ramallah, Palestine, studied carpentry and architectural drawing in Jerusalem, stone sculpting with Paul Taylor and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under Heimo Zobernig.
Besides creating intense self-reflective often life sized sculpting work, Zatar is also actively involved in various projects, that support refugees and immigrants and concentrate on intercultural discourse:

2016 Junge College: teacher in a youth college for refugees.
2015-16 Wiener Rotes kreuz: translation and social support in refugees centres in Vienna.
2015 Prosa Projekt Schule für alle: curator and organiser of art projects and exhibition
2015-16 Volkstheater Vienna: Actor, ?Lost and Found?, ?Niemandsland? director: Yael Ronen
2014 Schauspielhaus Graz: Installation and stage design
2013-15 Schauspielhaus Graz: Actor, ?Niemandsland?, – director: Yael Ronen
2013 Art workshops for high school students in Malmö in the frame of the screening of the movie ?Love During Wartime? on the topic of Racism, Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism
2012 Art Workshop in the frame of the project ?wasser weg?? in cooperation with VIDC.
2009 ?Künstler Drehscheibe kellergasse? – summer workshop and outdoor installation.
2009 OneState – cooperation with the artist Tal Adler. Social political art project offering new alternatives to coexistence in Israel and Palestine by opening the first embassy of OneState in Vienna

Music by Steffko and The Steffkos