News
A Language Of Image: From Manuscripts To Meta-Algorithms
From Islamic manuscripts to Blender renders, the image of the Arabic language has always been built from overlapping histories and references. The designers pushing it forward today are proving that visual history is most useful when it becomes a tool for invention rather than nostalgia, and that the archive is not a repository of finished answers
Tripoli’s Rumman Music Festival Returns for a Fifth Edition
Running 4 and 5 September, the festival brings SANAM, EMSALLAM, Ma-Beyn, and Tripoli's own BILEL to the city's revived Art Deco cinema
Let the Majlis Be a Majlis
The majlis has historically been associated with governance, community, hospitality, and negotiation in the Arab world. In the last few years, it has also become an aesthetic object exhibited at biennials and museums. But what happens when a social form becomes a spectacle? What does it mean when a space deemed private is put on display?
Following Traces: Anthony Bourdain, Food, and the Politics of Travelling with Care
Anthony Bourdain arrived in Beirut in 2006 to film a food show. Two days later, Israel bombed the city. The footage, and the Emmy nomination that followed, say something uncomfortable about the Western appetite for Arab tragedy on television. On food, travel, and the difference between loving a place and consuming it
Amine Houari and The Making of a City
Photographer Amine Houari has spent three years documenting the brutal urban transformation of Tangier, a city deconstructed and reinvented almost to the point of disappearance
John Lobb and the Enduring Language of Good Shoes
In an era obsessed with what can be seen, the finest expressions of style are often found at ground level
Ali Kazim and Zarina Beckon Us Into Their Urdu Worlds
The UAE’s inaugural exhibition dedicated to the Urdu language, curated by Hammad Nasar