AMER MATAR

Work / time / archive

Chronology

One year at a time: what the year did, and the records that document it. The complete index of everything published or presented lives in the archive — each year links straight to its own section there.

18Years covered
12Year summaries
19Illustrated records
2026

The year in brief

  • March: SEDNAYA: Syria’s Architecture of Repression and Death opened at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial and runs through September 2026.
  • Continued development of Jawab for families, with 2026–2030 targets including organising around 100,000 records related to missing people and serving tens of thousands of families.

9 items from 2026 in the archive →

2025

The year in brief

  • Documented more than 70 detention sites and prisons belonging to the former regime during the first half of the year.
  • 15 September: launch of the Syria Prisons Museum at the National Museum in Damascus, beginning with the file of Sednaya Military Prison.
  • Published major investigations including Sednaya Military Prison and Branch 215 of the Military Intelligence Directorate.

Records

01

8 December 2025 · Berlin · Investigations & archives · Exhibitions & events

Reading the personal security file at HAU Hebbel am Ufer

A public presentation in Berlin built around documents from Matar’s personal security file. The photographs show the file being read on stage and the archival portrait projected behind it.

19 items from 2025 in the archive →

2024

The year in brief

  • 11 October: public launch of the ISIS Prisons Museum at the National Theatre in London.
  • November: the project’s first physical exhibition, Three Walls: Spatial Narratives of Old Mosul, at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
  • 8 December: fall of the Assad regime; returned to Syria and led extensive documentation of prisons, security branches and records with the Prisons Museum team.
  • Consolidation of Prisons Museum e.V. as an independent specialised institution in Berlin, with a large archive and a team of more than 70 journalists, photographers, architects, archivists, programmers and lawyers.

13 items from 2024 in the archive →

2023

2 items from 2023 in the archive →

2022

Records

01

27 January 2022 · Press & interviews · Justice

Facing the torturer in court — CPJ interview

An interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists about what it meant, as a journalist, to face a former Syrian security official in court after having been detained and tortured.

Read interview ↗

3 items from 2022 in the archive →

2021

The year in brief

  • Testified before the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz in the trial of former Syrian intelligence officer Anwar Raslan — one of the most significant universal-jurisdiction trials concerning crimes committed by the Syrian security services.
  • The experience was covered by BBC World Service in How I Brought My Jailer to Justice and by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Records

01

7 April 2021 · Koblenz, Germany · Justice · Personal

Testimony in the Anwar Raslan trial

Amer Matar testified in the Koblenz trial of Anwar Raslan. After the hearing, he stood outside the court with a sign reading: “Ten years ago I was a prisoner in al-Khatib branch. Today I confront my jailer in court.”

1 items from 2021 in the archive →

2020

Records

01

2020 · Raqqa · Exhibitions & events

Murals in the streets of Raqqa

Photographs from mural work in Raqqa in 2020, showing the image returning to building facades and public space in a city still visibly marked by destruction.

2 items from 2020 in the archive →

2019

Records

01

2013 → photographed in Berlin, 2019 · Personal · Investigations & archives · Writing & books

The only book that survived the library in Raqqa

During a visit to Raqqa in 2013, Matar took this volume of poetry by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab with him to Germany. After ISIS consolidated control over Raqqa, the rest of the books in his library were burned. This volume remained the only survivor from that library.

1 items from 2019 in the archive →

2018

2 items from 2018 in the archive →

2017

The year in brief

  • Began documenting ISIS prisons and mass graves while searching for colleagues and missing people — work that later developed into the Prisons Museum and then the ISIS Prisons Museum. The team subsequently began documenting 100 prisons and mass-grave sites across Syria and Iraq.
  • Launched the Raqqa Between Two Bridges programme to support civil society in Raqqa and Deir Ezzor: working with 24 organisations and producing 407 short videos (2017–2021).

Records

01

From 2017 · Investigations & archives

From documenting events to documenting systems

Work increasingly shifted toward documenting ISIS detention sites, internal records, testimony and the missing. This was the beginning of a longer research method that would later combine archives, field documentation, spatial reconstruction and investigation.

1 items from 2017 in the archive →

2016

The year in brief

  • Contributed to Texts from Exile.
  • Completed the production of a body of feature-length films (2011–2016) and short films (2011–2014) through AlShare.

Records

01

18 June 2016 · Berlin · Film · Exhibitions & events

ZUHÖREN — Film, conflict and migration

A public conversation in the ZUHÖREN programme by Sasha Waltz & Guests about documentary film as a way to work through conflicts and crises, give victims a voice, and think about migration, political conflict and the future role of film.

4 items from 2016 in the archive →

2015

2 items from 2015 in the archive →

2014

The year in brief

  • First edition of the Syria Mobile Film Festival, which continued through 2017/2018 and included the Pixels training programme, 13 production grants and screenings in more than twenty cities worldwide.
  • Contributed to Syria from the Inside.
  • The contribution to Syria Speaks is represented here under its 2014 publication entry, following the dated book material supplied for this chronology.

Records

02

2014 · Writing & books

Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline

Amer Matar contributed to the 2014 book Syria Speaks, a collection bringing together Syrian writers and artists responding to the country’s cultural and political transformations.

2013—2018 · First edition 2014 · Film · Exhibitions & events

Syria Mobile Film Festival

The festival used mobile-phone filmmaking as a way to bring images made close to events into public circulation. The visual archive includes posters and screenings in very different settings, from local halls to open-air and archaeological spaces.

Watch Al Jazeera report ↗

6 items from 2014 in the archive →

2013

The year in brief

  • Began preparations for the Syria Mobile Film Festival.
  • 13 August: ISIS abducted his younger brother, photographer Mohammad Nour Matar, in Raqqa. His fate remains unknown — an experience that later became one of the roots of the ISIS Prisons Museum and Jawab.
  • Contributed to Writing from Exile. The Syria Speaks contribution is shown under the dated 2014 publication entry elsewhere in this chronology.

Records

06

28 May 2013 · Germany · Press & interviews · Writing & books

Writing about Syria from exile

A German newspaper page dated 28 May 2013 containing a text by Amer Matar about Syria, alongside a profile of his work. It documents the shift from reporting inside Syria to writing about the country from exile.

2013 · Germany · Writing & books · Exhibitions & events

Writers in Exile

A record from the Writers in Exile period in Germany, when writing, public conversations and work on Syria continued in the context of exile.

2013 · Raqqa · Personal · Exhibitions & events · Investigations & archives

“I Want My Brother” — protest in Raqqa

During Mohammed Nour Mattar’s first detention by ISIS in Raqqa, Amer Matar carried a sign reading “I want my brother” at a demonstration in the city. Another photograph from the same protest includes Abdelilah al-Hussein, who was also abducted by ISIS months after the photograph was taken.

Raqqa · 2013 · personal archive

2013 · Film · Personal

Window of Light — A Tribute to Mohammed Nour Mattar

A film connected to the abduction of Mohammed Nour Mattar in 2013.

Watch film ↗

Date to be confirmed · Film · Personal

The Nightmare Landed Here

A documentary film preserved here as part of the visual record of this period. Its precise publication date has not yet been assigned in the archive.

Watch film ↗

9 items from 2013 in the archive →

2012

The year in brief

  • Moved to Germany.
  • Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung fellowship, and the beginning of the PEN Writers in Exile fellowship period through 2015.
  • Launched the Syrian Street Festival; activities and exhibitions later extended to Amman, London, Toronto, Vancouver, Bucharest, Paris and Berlin. Visual material supplied for this chronology documents editions in 2011–2013.
  • Contributed to the book Syria… The Difficult Path to Freedom.

Records

02

2011—2013 · Exhibitions & events

The Syrian Street Festival

Materials from the Syrian Street Festival across its 2011, 2012 and 2013 editions: street gatherings, posters, stencils and public interventions. A 2013 poster announces activities between 15 and 22 March across northern Syria and cities in Turkey, France, Sweden and Italy.

Syrian Street Festival · 2011—2013

9 August 2012 · Berlin · Exhibitions & events · Personal

The Chain Will Break

A photograph from Berlin carrying the phrase “The Chain Will Break,” part of the visual and public work around Syria during this period.

4 items from 2012 in the archive →

2011

The year in brief

  • Covered the Syrian uprising, documenting protests and repression and producing films and reports from inside Syria.
  • Worked with Al Arabiya on the programme “Dialogues from the Syrian Arena”, and produced reports for Al Arabiya, France 24 and Reuters through 2012.
  • Co-directed Smuggling 23 Minutes of a Revolution, screened on Al Arabiya and in Paris, Berlin and Brussels; Azadi, awarded the silver medal at the Rotterdam Arab Film Festival and broadcast by France 24; and Hama 1892 Hama 2011.
  • 28 March 2011: first arrest because of journalistic work, at Branch 251 (Al-Khatib).
  • 3 September 2011 – 4 January 2012: second arrest and torture in detention, including at Branch 215 and Adra Prison.

Records

01

2011 · Film · Press & interviews

Smuggling 23 Minutes of Revolution

A film from 2011, made during the first year of the Syrian uprising.

Watch film ↗

5 items from 2011 in the archive →

2010

The year in brief

  • Studied journalism at Damascus University from 2004 to 2010.
  • Founded AlShare Media Foundation in Syria in 2010 with a group of journalists, photographers, artists and filmmakers, and began documenting stories of internal displacement and the drought crisis before the uprising.

Open 2010 in the archive →

2008

The year in brief

  • Began working in journalism and writing for the Arab press, including Lebanon’s An-Nahar and Al-Hayat.

Records

01

Summer 2008 · Damascus · Press & interviews · Film

First meeting with Omar Amiralay

During his early work as a journalist, Amer Matar met the late Syrian filmmaker Omar Amiralay for the first time at Atassi Gallery. The photograph belongs to an early period in which journalism and documentary film were beginning to meet in his work.

Personal archive · Atassi Gallery

Open 2008 in the archive →