Ensuring national security, increasing influence among its Arab neighbours and securing the return of the Golan Heights, have been the primary goals of the Syrian Arab Republic's foreign policy. At many points in its history, Syria has seen tension with its neighbours, such as Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon. Syria enjoyed an improvement in relations with several of the states in its region in the 21st century, prior to the Arab Spring and the Syrian Civil War.
The culture of Lebanon and the Lebanese people emerged from various civilizations over thousands of years. It was home to the Phoenicians and was subsequently conquered and occupied by the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks and the French. This variety is reflected in Lebanon's diverse population, composed of different religious groups, and features in the country's festivals, literature, artifacts, cuisine and architecture of Lebanon. Tourism in Lebanon is popular with periods of interruption during conflict.
Etel Adnan was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist, and visual artist. In 2003, Adnan was named "arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today" by the academic journal MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.
Sara Shamma is a UK-based Syrian artist whose paintings are figurative in style. The importance of storytelling and narrative is paramount in her work. Shamma has a long-standing interest in the psychology associated with the suffering of individuals and has made work on the subject of war, modern slavery and human trafficking. Her works can be divided into series that reflect prolonged periods of research.
Jordanian art has a very ancient history. Some of the earliest figurines, found at Aïn Ghazal, near Amman, have been dated to the Neolithic period. A distinct Jordanian aesthetic in art and architecture emerged as part of a broader Islamic art tradition which flourished from the 7th-century. Traditional art and craft is vested in material culture including mosaics, ceramics, weaving, silver work, music, glass-blowing and calligraphy. The rise of colonialism in North Africa and the Middle East, led to a dilution of traditional aesthetics. In the early 20th-century, following the creation of the independent nation of Jordan, a contemporary Jordanian art movement emerged and began to search for a distinctly Jordanian art aesthetic that combined both tradition and contemporary art forms.
Wahbi al-Hariri-Rifai was a Syrian American artist. He was also an accomplished architect, archaeologist, and author. His artwork has garnered international recognition and praise both in his lifetime and posthumously.
Shaikh Rashid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa is a member of the Bahraini royal family, an artist and the chairman of Bahrain's National Council for Arts. He is the first president and the current honorary president of the Bahrain Arts Society. He has painted over a period of 50 years, beginning with landscape painting in the late 1960s. His recent work continues to explore his immediate landscape and the traditional architecture of his homeland, through wall based, structural installations created with aluminium. He is widely considered one of the Kingdom's most renowned artists.
Al-Mustaqbal is an Arabic language online newspaper in Lebanon, headquartered in Beirut and is an official publication of the Future Movement. In 2019, it was announced that the newspaper would cease publication of its paper edition, but that it would continue online.
Sahar Taha was an Iraqi musician and journalist living in Lebanon. She co-hosted the Lebanese programme Banat Hawa on LBC. She was known for playing the oud in both eastern and western music.
Objectifs is an independent non-profit visual arts space in Singapore that aims to cultivate original voices in visual storytelling, and to inspire and broaden perspectives through the power of images. It presents a year round programme of exhibitions, screenings, residencies, developmental programmes, talks and workshops that advance the practice and appreciation of photography and film.
Islamic graffiti is a genre of graffiti created by people who usually relate to the Middle East or North Africa, using Arabic or other languages for social or political messages. It is a popular art genre created by "artists, graffiti writers, designers and typographers from the Middle East and around the world who merge Arabic calligraphy with the art of graffiti writing, street art and urban culture."
Akram Zaatari is a filmmaker, photographer, archival artist and curator. In 1997, he co-founded the Arab Image Foundation with photographers Fouad Elkoury, and Samer Mohdad. His work is largely based on collecting, studying and archiving the photographic history of the Arab World.
Assaad Wajdi Razzouk is a Lebanese-British clean-energy entrepreneur, author, podcaster and commentator.
Contemporary art in Egypt refers to visual art, including installations, videos, paintings, or sculptures, developed in the Egyptian art scene. While the contemporary art scene is mainly concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria, it is developing fast with the emergence of spaces for artists, and support from the public or from abroad. Many Egyptian artists use the Egyptian contemporary art scene as a ramp toward the international art scenes.
Yazan Halwani is a Lebanese artist and activist from Beirut. Yazan is best known for his public art displays, including graffiti, murals, and sculptures. His murals can be found on buildings across Beirut, and often depict portraits of important Lebanese and Middle Eastern figures.
Laura Boushnak is a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian photographer whose work is focused on women, literacy, and education reform in the Arab world. For her ongoing documentary project "I Read I Write" she photographed girls and women changing their lives with education in Egypt, Yemen, Kuwait, Jordan and Tunisia.
Calligraffiti is an art form that combines calligraphy, typography, and graffiti. It can be classified as either abstract expressionism or abstract vandalism. It is defined as a visual art that integrates letters into compositions that attempt to communicate a broader message through writing that has been aesthetically altered to move beyond the literal meaning. Simply put, it is the conscious effort of making a word or group of words into a visual composition. As such it is meant to be both an aesthetic experience and provocative art—mixing tradition and precision with modern unbridled self-expression.
George Awde is a visual artist currently based in Doha, Qatar. Awde’s photographs explore contemporary masculinity, ideas of state, the formation of kinship, and the self, through photographs of young men in the Middle East.
Hilda Hiary is a Jordanian visual artist.
Barjeel Art Foundation is a non-profit arts organisation based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The foundation was established in 2010 by Emirati commentator Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi to manage and exhibit his personal art collection. There are over 1,000 pieces of modern and contemporary art in the foundation's art collection. The organisation primarily focuses on artwork produced by Arab artists worldwide and includes paintings, sculptures and installations.
