The Date Palm Had One More Thing to Give, and Datecrete Has a Seoul Design Award Prize to Prove It

A stubborn little seed, an unlikely experiment and years of material research. Datecrete Studio & Lab challenges what we consider waste and what we imagine architecture could become

5 Young Arab Designers Who Refuse to Blend In

The emerging cohort of designers transforming raw material into a living temperament

Time Tells Tales: What Your Watch Says About You

What can a watch reveal beyond the time? A quiet expression of cultivated taste, unspoken ambition, and the subtle art of making a statement without saying a word

HinDidi: When Bollywood Invited Algeria to Dance 

In the aftermath of independence, Bollywood offered Algeria something revolution could not: the freedom to dream, to love, and to imagine a life beyond struggle. Decades later, one Indian film, Janitou, remains a tender relic of a future that never quite arrived

Notes on Lebanese Frenchies and the In Vitro Diaspora

Francophilia has long been a part of Lebanon’s complex sociopolitical fabric. The Frenchies of the country detach themselves from their environment and enjoy a bourgeois French-centric mode of existence. In the wake of ongoing national crises, members of the francophone middle class are becoming increasingly critical of their upbringing and aim to re-appropriate a certain sense of Lebaneseness

Salam, El Mehdi!

Pop star, filmmaker and now leading man, El Mehdi talks gatekeeping, going home and the peace that comes with choosing yourself

Eurovision, Samira Said, and Morocco’s Unreceived Love Letter

Revisiting Morocco’s choice to perform at Eurovision in 1980, the first and last Arab country to do so, reveals a complex web of forces at play in our history, and a legacy that stands in evidence of a confused national identity, much less healed from colonial violation than it purports to be

Okay, but who’s actually buying these Saddam Hussein watches? And why?

On the strange afterlife of Saddam Hussein watches and what their thriving resale trade says about nostalgia, myth-making, and a region's unresolved relationship with its strongmen