Nahla Ink Online Journal

Presented in partnership with the Poetry Translation Centre and Manchester Poetry Library.Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish, UK poet Paul Batchelor and bridge translator Atef Alshaer read poems in Arabic and English from their dual language collection 'Embrace'.Najwan Darwish was one of Hay's Beirut 39 writers in 2010, and the New York Review of Books described him as ‘one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation’. His witty and emotionally truthful poems often speak directl...

Hosted by the NYUAD InstituteSpeaker: Najat Rahman, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of MontrealAn exciting development in international art, contemporary Middle Eastern art notably by women challenges the relationship between art and power. Through the work of artists such as Larissa Sansour and Sama al-Shaibi, who envision alternative and distant futures, we ask: Is art an archaeology, and an architecture, of the future? Why does this art, often preoccupied with the pres...

A rare chance to catch up with some very special guests from the ever-expanding queer Arab arts scene, joining your host Alice Guthrie for chats and rants, laments and laughs, dreams and schemes.Leave your preconceptions at the virtual door, pull up a cushion, and hang out with us in the queer zone.Expect deep discoveries, non-binary notions, and radical routes as we take a ramble through these artists’ groundbreaking work, the current global moment, queerness, and other urgent and excit...

Brought to you by Liverpool Arab Arts Festival Online at Liverpool Arab Arts Festival Thursday 1 – Saturday 31 October 2020Yemen in Conflict is a national partnership between Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, the University of Leeds and the University of Liverpool. It explores how Yemeni literature and poetry can be safeguarded, and how it can further the understanding of the situation in Yemen.The cultural heritage of Yemen is at extreme risk due to war: displacement has resulted in m...

To celebrate the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize lecture to be given by Liana Badr, the Banipal Book Club will be discussing Liana Badr’s novel 'The Eye of the Mirror' at their next meeting on 4 November.Published in Arabic in 1991, it was translated into English by Samira Kawar and published as part of Garnet Publishing’s Arab Women Writers series in 1996. The novel is set in the Tal el-Zaatar refugee camp in the mid-1970s and recounts the 1975–6 siege of Tal el-Zaatar in Beirut, as seen th...

Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation Lecture is given by Palestinian writer Liana Badr. This is a live online event. Bookers will be sent a link in advance giving access and will be able to watch at any time for 48 hours after the start time.Attendees will be able to watch either an Arabic or English Language version of the lecture. This year’s Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation Lecture is given by the well-known Palestinian novelist,...

Exhibition Dates: 29 October - 14 November 2020Curator: Mishelle BritoArtist: Alaa AlsarajiMapping Sanctuaries is a collection of digital illustrations and sound pieces exploring the notions of safety and the spaces that exist between isolation and belonging within Muslim communities. Mapping Sanctuaries aims to platform the voices of British Muslims from different backgrounds to illustrate what these spaces look like, feel like and what they provide physically and emotionally for th...

Black, anti-racist and anti-capitalist feminism is often side-lined in mainstream discourses. In their book Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah interview some of the most powerful voices in revolutionary feminist thought to consider urgent transformations of the economy, social relations and political structures. In this live online panel, Bhandar and Ziadah are joined by two contributors – Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Vron Ware – to discuss what resistance looks like, from anti-colonialism to prison ab...

Webinar: With the Author Diana Darke'Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture shaped Europe' (Hurst, 2020) uncovers a long yet often overlooked history of architectural ‘borrowing’, revealing the Arab and Islamic roots of Europe’s architectural heritage.Ideas and styles are traced as they passed from vibrant Middle Eastern centres like Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, entering Europe via gateways like Muslim Spain, Sicily and Venice through the movement of pilgrims, bishops, merc...

The Palestinian powerhouse returns to the capital to launch their anticipated new album, enthralling and electrifying! 47Soul’s iconic ‘Shamstep’ style is a potent combination of electronic hip-hop and traditional Palestinian street music. Formed in Jordan in 2013, their signature sound and high-energy music incorporates regional bass-heavy dance beats, analogue synthesisers and hypnotic hooks.Their lyrics, sung in both Arabic and English, have come to embody a captiv...

Exhibition Dates: 1 October, 2020—28 March, 2021The Mosaic Rooms will host the first UK solo exhibition for the artist Heba Y Amin. Amin investigates how the elusive narratives of regional politics in the Middle East relate to global concerns. Her research-based, multimedia works take speculative, and sometimes satirical, approaches to understanding these historical events and processes.This exhibition presents the latest iterations of three distinct and evolving bodies of work by the ...

Taking place at Imperial War Museum (IWM) London, 'Refugees' explores refugee experiences throughout history and ongoing issues faced by those affected through two major exhibitions, a series of events and a new site-specific art commission at IWM London from world-renowned artist Ai Weiwei.Collectively, 17.5 million people have fled Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen alone, due to recent conflict. This, however, is not a new phenomenon and throughout history war has dras...