Sara Kontar

Syrian artist, photographer, and filmmaker who has been based in France since 2016. She holds a Master’s degree in Animation Cinema from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris (ENSAD), where she graduated in 2023. Her multidisciplinary work explores themes of exile, identity, and collective memory through documentary and experimental photography, installation, video, and animation cinema.  

Her installation “Towards a Light”  (2021–2022), created using texts and cyanotype prints from her journey of exile, was exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in 2024 as part of the *Dislocations* exhibition. This piece reflects the fractures of migration, serving as a therapeutic gesture expressing the melancholy of exile and its foundational impact. Her short documentary film “3350 KM”, completed in 2023, recounts her separation from her father who remained in Syria. This experimental documentary was selected for several international festivals and was a candidate for the European Film Academy Awards. Earlier experimental video works have been showcased at prestigious venues, including the Centre Pompidou and the Palais de Tokyo.  

Sara Kontar is also the recipient of several awards, including the Inge Morath Award from Magnum, and is an alumna of the Magnum Foundation and VII Fondation. Her works have been exhibited internationally in venues such as the Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris and the C Gallery in Switzerland.  

Delving into her roots and the experience of exile, Kontar’s art conveys human emotions from a deeply personal and intimate perspective. In 2021, she founded “Al-Ayoun”, a platform for contemporary Syrian visual storytellers, connecting artists in the diaspora with those in Syria. Through this initiative, she organizes exhibitions, screenings, and living archives, amplifying Syrian narratives across borders.