The Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf opens “The Gardener” with the declaration: “I am an agnostic filmmaker.” From anyone else, this might seem like a simple statement, but not from the complex Mr. Makhmalbaf. In 1974, when he was 17, religious and involved in a guerrilla group, he stabbed a policeman, for which he received a bullet to the stomach and a prison sentence.
In five months Ankara has seen more blood spilled by terror than many places do in a lifetime.’ A protest after a bombing in Ankara in October 2015. On Sunday evening, a bomb exploded near a bus stop at a busy transport hub in central Ankara. At least 37 people died and many more were injured. Innocent people who were just trying to go about their day-to-day business had their lives blown apart.
Meet Shamsia Hassani. At age 24, she is one of Afghanistan's first female graffiti artists.
An associate professor of sculpture at Kabul University, she was first introduced to graffiti in 2010 by British artist, Chu, during a week-long course in street art.
Meet also Malina Suliman, 23, who has been receiving threats from extremists due to her work in graffiti.
Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has recreated the image of drowned infant Alan Kurdi that in 2015 became the defining symbol of the plight of Syria’s refugees.
For the recreation, Ai lay on a pebbled beach on the Greek island of Lesbos. His pose was similar to that of Kurdi’s lifeless body, which washed up on a beach near the Turkish town of Bodrum and was captured in a September 2015 photo.
Youngsters on the West Bank will have the chance to benefit creatively from a new project this summer. From the beginning of July, Handheld Stories plans to teach filmmaking skills to groups between eight and 16 years old from youth centres and refugee camps in East Jerusalem, Nablus and Hebron, while also giving them video equipment, computers and software.
There are over 200,000 migrant domestic workers living in Lebanon
today — a large number when you considered that Lebanon’s population is
only a little over 4 million. Most migrant workers live with their
Lebanese employers, cleaning their houses, washing their clothes,
cooking their food and looking after their children. Yet these workers
are not included under Lebanon’s labor laws — they are not entitled to
MoMA presents the first comprehensive American survey of the leading contemporary artist Walid Raad (b. 1967, Lebanon), featuring his work in photography, video, sculpture, and performance from the last 25 years.
Unfortunately, those who struggle for a more equal and democratic society are not the only ones who can make use of creative forms of activism. The following example shows how creative strategies can also be employed by those who have less wholesome intentions in mind.
On October 2nd, three animal rights activists shocked the world with an extraordinarily bold act, organized by Alex Bojour. They all were branded alive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4q1pU957c) as a symbolic act of identification with the animals that are branded and used by the human species, conveying the message of animal equality.
UK design students focusing on the use of design that moves beyond exclusivity, wealth, entitlement, and privilege, have created a coat that is also a shelter. The functional pocketed coat that converts into a tent and a sleeping bag, is intended for Syrian refugees. The students under the guidance of Dr.
On June the 18th 2013 in Istanbul, Turkey suddenly a man appeared on Taksim Square, just standing there.
After more than 2 weeks of peaceful protest against the ruling Prime Minister and his party AKP Taksim Square is still the focus point of attention.
After Afghan artist Malina Suliman's father suffered a brutal attack in their hometown of Kandahar, the Suliman family fled to Mumbai, where they plan on staying until the end of March. Malina is a 23 year-old grafitti artist whose work can be seen throughout Kandahar, including a self-portrait of a skeleton in a burqah that provoked threats from local Taliban. The Suliman family suspects the attack on Mr.
Often in military style video games we kill without much regard for the enemy. They are faceless or stereotypical, the Nazi or evil Cold War–era Russian. They are enemies that were fought on the battlefields of great wars, or they are aliens that have no resemblance to humans save for a general humanoid form.
In 2011 a protest movement started in Israel. Citizens expressed their demand for a fair distribution of resources, claiming for the lack of housing and maintenance of the buildings and apartments, due to the privatized housing schemes. In these instances no one feels responsible for maintaining buildings and those in need are forced to live under poor and risky conditions.
Creative activism and the remaking of Palestine
While policy wonks and media pundits wallow in endless debates about Jewish settlements and the threat of terror, Palestinian groups are creatively exploring alternative ways to realise their national aspirations.
The project associating the contemporary movement of the people with the Gilgamesh journey focuses on the contemporary global crisis of the political systems and humanistic values, with the goal to contribute to the prevention of radicalization of our respective societies mobilized around recent conflicts, enhancement of the wellbeing of immigrants, through opening a space for creative expression and questioning the role of culture in contemporary polit
This month marks ten years since the start of the Syrian Civil War, an ongoing conflict that has cruelly cut the lives of hundreds of thousands short, and irrevocably changed the course of millions more. An estimated 5.6 million have fled the country over the past decade, mostly to the neighbouring countries of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, with many settling in camps they’ve since to come to call their permanent homes.
“I am the dishes, the ironing, I am everything, I am nothing. But remind me: Who are you?” So plays the hook of a new feminist anthem released by the Palestinian rappers, DAM. The video for “Who You Are” plays on sexist attitudes by having men and women switch domestic roles typical in the Middle East, but also familiar across most cultures.
In 2005, Emad Burnat got a video camera to record the birth of his son. That same year, Israel's security barrier went right through his village of Bil'in in the West Bank. The fence cut off some fields and olive groves on the other side.
When protests broke out against the establishment of the barrier, Burnat became the unofficial cameraman for the weekly anti-wall protests that drew support from around the world.
He had served in the army, either as a full-time soldier or as a reservist, for 22 years when he finally decided he wanted out. In 2003, Ari Folman, who had just turned 40, asked his commanders in the Israel Defence Forces to release him from the obligation to do a month's military service every year. They agreed - "so long as you go to the army therapist and talk about everything you went through".
As the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, hundreds of people gathered inside the Museum of Modern Art and outside of the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday for protests.
"Today there is literature coming out of Syria that we could have never even dreamed of just a few years ago," Atrash says.Rather than relying on metaphors and allegorical images, these new poems rely on literal, visceral descriptions, with a newfound emphasis on a united Syrian identity instead of religious symbols.
Ghada al-Atrash, a Syrian-Canadian writer and translator, has been studying Syrian poetry for decades.