“If history is written by the victors, will the future be written by the defeated?”
—Slavs & Tartars
It began as a love story. An Iranian raised in Texas and living in Moscow meets a Pole who lives in London. As with the best romances, they meet at a barbecue in Paris. They fall in love, and [...]

Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid Al Gharaballi were kids when Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. In January 1991 an American-led coalition initiated Operation Desert Storm with airstrikes on Iraqi army positions in both countries. On February 26, after the arrival of coalition ground troops, Iraq retreated, setting fire to Kuwaiti oil fields on [...]

“There are no amateurs in the world of children.”
—Don Delillo, White Noise
Child actors are often unsettling, especially to the grown or the childless. Good acting has undertones of magic, mimesis allowing us mere mortals to momentarily embody powers usually reserved for the divine or the demonic. For a child to act with any particular [...]

The plan was to create an army of black “super children”: seventy boys and seventy girls who would flood into the United States from a secret compound in Canada to combat racial injustice and build a more perfect society from the bottom up. Lee Boyd Malvo, a seventeen-year-old immigrant from Kingston, Jamaica, was “very [...]

For many of us, the parched desert expanse of Dubai represents the most extremely fantastical site for experimentation. Herein lies the future of architecture, the future of urbanism, the future of the future. In hopes of tracking the evolution of this brave new word of design, Bidoun asked some of the world’s leading architects—all [...]

Images and text courtesy of Michael Rakowitz Lombard-Freid Projects

The shelter was the living room of our home in Jbeil; it was chosen because its east, west, and south sides were shielded by the bedroom, my uncle’s apartment, and the kitchen, respectively. The north side was secured by a wall of oil barrels filled with sand and gravel. The shelter was equipped with a [...]

In 1981, A Washington, DC, Punk band named minor threat released a song called “Straight Edge.” The lyrics, as barked by the lead singer, Ian Mackaye, delivered an unequivocal rebuke to punk-rock hedonism:

I’m a person, just like you
But I’ve got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck with my head
Hang out with the [...]

LETTER

PREVIEWS

INFRASTRUCTURE
Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children & Young Adults (Kanoon)
Arash Sadeghi

ART MARKET
La Galerie Qui Bouge
Kristine Genevive Khouri

TRAVEL
Arabic As A Second Language
Negar Azimi

MUSEUM
Pow Wow Wow
Vahid Zare Zade

COLLECTION
Selim Varol, The Toy Giant
Monihan Monihan

WORK IN PROGRESS
Shahab Fotouhi
Karthik Pandian

PROFILE
Slavs & Tatars
Negar Azimi

KIDS

ARTIST PROJECT
Another Resolution
Akram Zaatari

Children Of War: Beirut
Julien & Gabi Asfour

Children Of War: Kuwait
Fatima Al Qadiri & Khalid Al Gharaballi

Children Of War: Baghdad
Emad Abdelkarim Ali

Sweet Sixteen
Lisa Farjam

Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Lina Mounzer

Harry Potter And The Rim Of Fire
Tom Morton

Solid Gold
Sophia Al-Maria

His Dark Materials
Gary Dauphin

Oshin’s Forelock
Pamela Karimi

Bouboul
Sahar Mandour

The Education Of Lee Boyd Malvo
Alexander Provan

ARTIST PROJECT
Stay Out Of My Room
Annabel Mehran

ARTIST PROJECT
Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life
Serkan Taycan

ARTIST PROJECT
Strike The Empire Back
Michael Rakowitz

ARCHITECTURE
Razing The Emirates

ARTIST PROJECT
Some Things Cannot Be Made In China
Vartan Avakian

MUSIC
Vegan Jihad
Kelefa Sanneh talks to Sean Muttaqi

EXHIBITIONS

Cold War Modern
Shumon Basar

Human Conditions
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

Beirut Every-Other-Day
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

Buckminster Fuller
Davey Volner

Roads Were Open Roads Were Closed
Antonia Carver

Walid Raad:A History Of Modern & Contemporary Arab Art
Mirene Arsanios

Taipei 08 Biennial
November Paynter

Facing
Jason Simon

Jerusalem Show
Edition 0.1
Reem Fadda

Yael Bartana
Nikki Columbus

BOOKS

Islam & The West: A Conversation With Jacques Derrida
Leland de la Durantaye

The Turban & The Hat
Hassan Khan

Rice Pudding For Two
Sahar Mandour

SHORT TAKES

PHRASE BOOK
Arabic Sign Language

COOKING
My Nanny Food