‘Searching for Ancient Arabia’– further information about the research project
A workshop will be held for all those interested in participating in this research project at the Downtown Campus (off Hamdan Street) of NYU Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 25 February, from 18:00 to 20:30. For...
View ArticleCurrent activities & diversions to other websites
Setting up a tech start-up with my partner Bernard Adongo called NaiFlow, to map the traffic flows of Nairobi by collecting big data, and develop a traffic prediction app for mobile phones and other...
View ArticleSearching for Ancient Arabia in Bahrain
View of the excavated Portuguese fort with the sea behind it, and the palm groves between the two. One of the beautiful sceneries we encountered during our research. Summary Between 8 and 11 April I...
View ArticleMaking an exhibition with my students at the Paris School of International...
This was my fifth year lecturing at the Paris School of International Affairs (the international Master programme of Sciences Po) and the third year teaching the course ‘Contemporary Art and...
View ArticleAbout my trip to Najran
My next post about my trip to Najran, near the Yemeni border, was put online here by me today. Photo taken in the ruins of the city of Al Ukhdood (ancient Najran) by Abdelkarim Qassem
View ArticleReview of Crisis of History in Belgian art magazine
Aya Johanna Danielle Durst Britt wrote a thoughtful review, in Flemish, of the exhibition in Amsterdam I curated – and which recently finished – in Al Arte Magazine.
View ArticleUnwinding the history of the UAE
Historic consciousness in the UAE and in the other GCC states goes back only a few centuries, at most; this is how far back most prominent Emirati families can reliably trace their genealogy. What...
View ArticleLessons (Not) Learnt in Afghanistan
I am posting the pdfs of my visual presentations for the course ‘Lessons (Not) Learnt in Afghanistan’, given at the Paris School of International Affairs in Feb-March 2015, here. My presentations serve...
View ArticleCrime Scene Yemen
I wrote this while a member of a Police Reform mission in Sanaa in 2012. My team leader asked me to brainstorm with the Ministry of Interior’s Communication Department to see what could be done in...
View ArticleA Political History of Art
My attempt to explain the deep relationship between artistic expression and political power, to the students of my course Contemporary Art in the Arab World at the Paris School of International...
View ArticleCan we still believe in revolution?
Rojava Day 1 My first impression in Rojava, the autonomous Kurdish area in northeastern Syria, is that everything seems quite normal. For a small region still engaged in the fight against the Islamic...
View ArticleLife and death in Rojava
Day 2 in Northwestern Syria We spent a long time talking with soldiers from the YPJ Amuda brigade. The YPJ is the Kurdish women’s militia; they claim to be about 50% of the Kurdish front line fighters,...
View ArticleNew World Summit in Rojava – Day 1
The 5th edition of the New World Summit opened today in Derik / Al Malikiyyah in northwestern Syria. The event, which was supposed to take place within the huge parliamentary structure being built by...
View ArticleArt and Soft Power in the Gulf
Article published in Issue #47 of Afkar / Ideas published in October 2015 by the European Institute of the Mediterranean in Barcelona / French version / Spanish version Art and Soft Power in the Gulf...
View ArticleThe Rojava Revolution
This article is awaiting publication, in this or a modified form A unique experiment in ‘stateless democracy’ and effective armed resistance against ISIS in Northern Syria is led by Kurdish women....
View ArticleArticle about Jonas Staal in Syria
Closing ceremony of the New World Summit in Derik, Syria I published this article in the December 2015 edition of The Art Newspaper – with first a ‘news’ story on page 3, and then a feature on pages...
View ArticleRaqqa DeZ peace conference – role playing simulation
This simulation of a peace conference is the final class of my Lessons (Not) Learnt in Afghanistan course at the Paris School of International Affairs. I will be tweeting about the results in live,...
View ArticleNo time for the Blues
Trump’s victory at the polls makes me feel optimistic. The wake-up call can no longer be ignored, now that a beast has ascended the throne of world power. It is time to act. I’m not worried that this...
View ArticleSurprise in Somalia! The perplexity of an analyst
Today, on February 8, 2017, the most corrupt and least democratic polls I’ve ever witnessed unexpectedly delivered victory to the least corrupt and most popular presidential candidate in the race:...
View ArticleReview of Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Deus, 2016 Harari asks important questions about the future of humankind and, for this alone, I’d recommend this book. But he brushes away some important issues that may force...
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