Blogs – Culture

The protests in Tunisia in 2010 may have swept away former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and 23 years of autocratic rule, but they have replaced him with a...

The River has two Banks: A Curatorial Project across Ramallah, Palestine and Amman, Jordan from September to the end of October 2012 The King Hussein Bridge that links Jordan...

This week the City of Frankfurt chose to award American Jewish philosopher and Berkeley Professor Judith Butler with the 2012 Theodor Adorno Prize, an award that acknowledges superb contributions...

Ramadan is a busy and important time of year for many charities focused on working in Muslim countries. Things get hectic and donors are keen to reap the rewards...

Waad Mohammed could be a twelve-year-old girl anywhere in the world. With long, curly brown hair and a cheeky smile, the flashes of the cameras reflect off her silver...

At around five million, France has the largest population of Muslims of any country in Europe. Things haven't always gone smoothly between its Muslim citizens and the government; incidents...

Playing instruments in the bathroom isn't quite what you expect when you think of classical musicians, but this is exactly what Palestinian flute player Dalia Moukarker does to snatch...

Sweeping shots of the desert make the 800-mile railway line cutting through its sand look miniature. As a train braves the track and appears in the corner of the...

Tucked into a corner of the Brunei Gallery in London are three share certificates in a display cabinet. One stands out as it is decorated with a beautiful blue...

The person in front of me flinches. Someone in the audience cannot even look at the screen, two people are crying. In an act of pure brutality, the camera...

The UK-based Palestinian dabke theatre group Al Zaytouna will present its new production entitled Unto the Breach, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V set in modern-day Palestine. The show,...

Amnon Neumann is wearing a blue shirt and large glasses. Despite the topic he presents his testimony slowly and gently to the spectators in front of him; he's talking...

In one of his drawings, Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat has drawn a picture of Bashar Al Assad announcing reforms, but instead of speaking, Assad is blowing bubbles through...

As much of the world focuses on China's change of political leadership this week, across the globe the emerging superpower quietly expand into other areas. On Wednesday, deep within...

Beyond Abbas's pictures of Iranian revolutionaries burning a portrait of the Shah in 1978, and past the stereotypical images of veiled women with mobile phones, a collection of photographs...

Walls and checkpoints in occupied Palestine mean that artists from Gaza and the West Bank, though from the same country, may never actually meet each other; art, therefore, can...

As the bloody uprising in Syria continues to rage, Ayyam Gallery in Damascus does more than just show artwork; it has become a safe haven for artists. The gallery...

A group of young boys gather around a TV set listening to the presenter as she delivers news of bombings in the Al Sadr neighbourhood of Baghdad, Iraq. Images...

As South Africa's apartheid system neared its end, the regime asked their long-term ally Israel for some advice. How could they boost their image in the West and sell...

After its nomination for an Academy Award, the documentary film, "5 Broken Cameras" by Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat, has gained attention amongst Arabs, Muslims and pro-Palestine activists. It is...

On the back wall of a tiny room in West London, a telephone hangs patiently next to the door; to the left is a shelf on which a silver...

Zaki Kabob restaurant in the state of New York, the economic capital of the United States, is standing fast in the face of alienation and temptation and yet continues...

These days there are a number of documentaries and academic books that address the Israel Palestine conflict; many of them, like Occupation 101, reveal how Israeli policy in the...

Sympathy, apathy and the human urge to live are among the emotions experienced when watching the Academy Award-nominated Palestinian documentary Five Broken Cameras. The film adopts such unadorned realism...

It's hard to recreate the 1960s with only a quarter of the budget you intended to shoot on. But that's exactly what Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir did to film...

The Tedious Occupation of Bureaucracy Six years ago Palestinian director Nahed Awwad, her husband and their four-week-old daughter were on the way to Germany from their home in the...

The most disturbing part of Caryl Churchill's The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution is the relevance its main themes have today. Set in a psychiatric hospital at...

A brief article on Forbes emphasising Israel's significant increase in tourism has been linked to the forthcoming 65th anniversary of "the birth of the nation". For Palestinians, the commemoration...

One villager cuts open an apple and presents to the camera the fruit before him. Inside, in a neat circle, are five pips – one for each point of...

The cameraman passes a microphone through a gap in the separation wall and a hand from the other side finds just enough space to take it; for one mother...

Qalandia, "I hate the word," says the protagonist as he walks through the familiar metal grille that protects the crossing between the West Bank and Jerusalem in the occupied...

Nadar Khallaf lays out colourful cards in the centre of the circle and asks each of the 12 young men surrounding him to pick two of them. A member...