Jameel Prize 4 – V & A Museum London.

The V&A has announced the shortlist for the Jameel Prize 4. Eleven artists and designers have been shortlisted for this year’s £25,000 prize, which is awarded every two years in partnership with Art Jameel. They are:

David Chalmers Alesworth
Rasheed Araeen
Lara Assouad
Canan
Cevdet Erek
Sahand Hesamiyan
Lucia Koch
Ghulam Mohammad
Shahpour Pouyan
Wael Shawky
Bahia Shehab

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/exhibition-jameel-prize/jameel-prize-4/

Meet five inspiring Arab fashion designers.

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Author: Vera Illugadóttir/ Your Middle East

These designers have one thing in common – they all challenge conventional ideas about fashion in the Middle East.

Khaled al Qasimi

“There’s always this underlying influence of the UAE and Middle East in my design. The characters I design for are usually urban tribal warriors and nomadic explorers. The idea of dressing as art is part of our culture. The smoking of incense and the placement of the headdress – there’s a whole art to it,” Khaled al Qasimi told CNN.

Fashion design is perhaps an usual career for a royal, but al Qasimi, the son of Sultan Mohamed al Qasimi, the ruler of Sharjah, did not let that stop him. He studied literature and architecture in London before deciding to follow his dreams and go into fashion. He presented his first womenswear line in 2008, but has since found his niche in…

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Remembering Leila Alaoui: The Moroccans.

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/The Moroccans, © Leila Alaoui/

It seems way too early to pay respect to Leila Alaoui, talented French-Moroccan photographer, in MER’s Remembering sessions. After all, she entered 2016 full of power, only in her thirties.

Unfortunately, Alaoui succumbed to her injuries sustained in the Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) terrorist attacks, only couple of days ago. She was among those (at least) 56  wounded and now joined those more than 30 killed.

Alaoui was born in Paris in 1982 and studied photography at City University of New York (CUNY) before spending time in Morocco and Lebanon.

Her work had been exhibited internationally in recent years, including at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and was featured in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times and Vogue. Last couple of years she lived between Marrakech and Beirut.

One of her most beautiful projects was The Moroccans. About it, she…

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Five For Friday: Ten Years In Turkish Cinema.

A wonderful read for those who are interested in Turkish Cinema!

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/photo: Winter Sleep snapshot/

If I write that Turkish cinema is on the rise, that it is original and compelling, often beautiful and poetic – I wouldn’t be saying anything new. The truth is already out there.

Still, I felt the need to write about a couple of really great Turkish films made during the last ten years (2006 – 2016). These films are maybe not the most famous ones, and maybe not even the best ones – but I think they show diversity, originality, and each one of them is a special experience, rich in layers and nuanced.

Also, I noticed that Five For Fridaycategory has been neglected for last couple of months – I am sorry about that and will do my best to bring a little something different to Fridays more often. It’s Friday, I am in love kind of a thing, but Middle East…

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A Dictionary Packed with Stories from Eighteenth-Century Delhi, British Library Blog

 

 

See more: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2016/01/a-dictionary-packed-with-stories-from-eighteenth-century-delhi.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+asian-and-african+%28Asia+and+Africa%29

The Book To Read: The Librarian Of Basra.

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/image © The Librarian of Basra/

Here is a real-life hero story. Alia Muhammad Baqer was the chief librarian in the Al Basrah Central Library in Basra (Iraq). Baqer saved around thirty thousand books from destruction during the Iraq War, including a biography of Muhammad from around 1300.

Her story inspired two children’s books, one of them being The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter (illustrated by Winter in bright acrylic and ink). It might be presented as a children’s book, but this lovely story is out there for everyone.

The book is written in a simple style and it’s very easy to understand, but the story it describes is not a simple one – it took a lot of courage to do what Alia Baqer and her friends did.

Baqer worked at the library for fourteen years.  As the war spread out, she tried to make sure books from the library would be…

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Revolutionary nian hua in the British Library

 

 

 

 

By Amy Jane Barnes, BICC Post-doctoral Researcher

more: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2015/12/revolutionary-nian-hua-in-the-british-library.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+asian-and-african+%28Asia+and+Africa%29