By Layla Al Mazrouei ~
Against the dusty light of evening over the Abu Dhabi horizon, a revolution is quietly unfolding—not of glass and metal but of story, of brush and pigment, of line. Throughout the United Arab Emirates, there is flooding into being a new generation of Emirati artists rewriting cultural narratives and re-fashioning presumptions about identity in the Arab world. These are not reinforcing but remaking, for an arising audience—a root-deep one but cosmopolitan-inflected one.
No longer gaze in awe at monumentality of build and scale of modernity unto...
By Sahar Rostami ~
Tehran stirs to the hymn of aromas—safer coffee beans, saffron tea, and the city's signature spice thrum. In this vast city, ancient tradition and modern elegance meet to produce a...
Story, music, and dance are the colossus instruments of nationalism that draw rich inspirations from the history, geographical, and cultural origins of the country in Oman. The genres of music are vibrant and...
By Grace Whitmore ~
Turkish life is a peaceful rhythm of talk, scent of freshly baked hot bread freshly taken out of the oven, and soft ways of a thousand-year-old hammam. To live so carefree is...
Step into the Limelight
Saudi culture is being reimagined on a grand scale by a new generation of writers, filmmakers, and poets who are rising to redefine the kingdom as the center of cultural...
By Amal Al-Sanani ~
As you ride across Yemeni valleys and mountains, you cannot help but notice that the inhabitants of a place like this have learned to appreciate nature — nature that...
Story, music, and dance are the colossus instruments of nationalism that draw rich inspirations from the history, geographical, and cultural origins of the country in Oman. The genres of music are vibrant and energetic in the rural as well as urban landscapes, well-established traditions sustained and including the modern preferences of the masses.
There was Omani music in highly textured influences themselves that had driven the Sultanate of sea trade and cross-cultural interaction centuries earlier. From across the ancient trade routes, Oman had attracted arts palates from Persia, India, and Africa. The traditional music typically consisted of instruments like oud, pear-shaped stringed instrument that came very close to mimicking the...
Not only a personality, but also an art, of fashion resistance is being adopted by Palestinian fashion designers when they enter green and environmental...
By Amina Al Mazrouei ~
From sand dunes wind-blown to marble in its best-of-the-best museums, the United Arab Emirates has expanded with its breathtaking style beckoning the art of the world. Its rowdiness tower-toppling and its oil wells no longer, the UAE is rapidly becoming an ethnic mix of multi-culture living where yesterday and tomorrow meet in the art expression splattered all around with abandon.
The UAE's rich cultural scene has been remade into a diverse, rich, multifaceted ecosystem in the past two decades. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are no longer art cities and destinations for collectors, curators, and artists from all over the globe. They're not only hosting art—but creating...
By Samira Al-Hamdi ~
Beneath Sana'a streets, and fallen mudbrick minarets, a revolution but concealed—no gun, no politics, beat and memory. There are qanbūs ripened, traditional dialect poetry lyricism, Arabic music heritage maintained. In a country whose recent history has been so filled with war, music of the capital shames otherwise: self-respecting, defiant, cultural renaissance.
All of war, all of the devastation war and globalization surrounding it is not managing to bring the Yemeni people back to their music a lot older than it was, but they are. Not only bring the music back, but bring it back, the musicians compose the music, blending tradition with newness that the music today...
Saudi Arabia is enacting an opening vision culture plan of economy diversification pursuit and petroleum income dependency cessation, as the Kingdom's Vision 2030 vision....
Omani national identity has been very well described in the language of fashion, and tradition costume increasingly becomes contemporary fashion. Edge-to-the-moment contemporary fashion cultures of such nature are indication of cultural richness in Oman and indication of tension in the here and now as...
By Talia Ben-Ami ~
In the hills of Galilee, a muezzin's call to prayer across a minaret becomes mixed with the chime of a local church bell, and a block or so down the way, a synagogue throws open its doors in welcome to Shabbat. It's not quite so much utopian fairyland as all that, but it's an introduction to the Israel mundanity—a country long stereotyped as being torn asunder, yet possessing one of the...
Over the past ten years, Qatar has also been transformed fundamentally culturally and is today one of the arts and culture world capitals. Strategic...
A revolution in Saudi art has swept across Saudi Arabia, restoring traditional country art and regarding new creativity trends to emerge. The revolution is more vital nationally in the struggle to retain historic...
By Barbaros Z. Alpman ~
Walking the cobble stone serpent avenues of Istanbul or enduring the keened saz dirge on Anatolian ridges, one observes: Turkey...
Youth are currently driving the country towards its cultural rebirth since their creativity is also revitalizing the country's culture in spite of the current...
Qatar is also witnessing a re-emergence of its oral and literary tradition with a new generation of story tellers redefine the cultural heritage of the nation. Taking the country's developed cultural heritage, social...
By Elena Charalambous Georgiou ~
NICOSIA, CYPRUS — Throughout this island nation of the Mediterranean, festivals are creating a brocade of oneness—where art, food, music, and culture overwrite schisms at the communal level and...
Historic richness awaits to satiate the intellectual and cultural hunger of the world. The country, boasting two of the world's oldest cities, Palmyra and Aleppo, is rich with ancient structures and paintings used...
By Noa Koren ~
Down Jerusalem's weathered cobblestone Old City streets and down hip beachfront boulevards in Tel Aviv, Israel pulses with a cultural rhythm...
By Layla Al Suwaidi ~
The United Arab Emirates is not merely constructing skyscrapers or pushing the limits of fashion—in carving out the future. Along...
By Hassan Al-Mahri ~
Heritage is not history— it's a country's soul, an eye over its heritage, identity, and culture which lived through millennia. In Yemen, a country renowned for its beautiful houses,...
Hala Al-Hamawi, Nottingham Trent University
The Middle East region, home to both oil-rich economies and fragile, conflict-affected states, remains among the most underfunded in the...
Andrew White, King's College London - It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Spotify saved the music industry. Global revenue for...
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