From Shared Traditions Come Diverse Talents   Syra Arts Gallery’s co-founders, Sylvia Van Vliet Ragheb and Randa Fahmy Aboul-Nasr, are providing welcome platforms in Egypt and Washington DC for artists from the Middle East and Iran to reach new audiences well beyond their shores.     What prompted you to first open Syra Arts...

A Fruitful Project in the Big Apple   Mohammed Rashid Al-Thani, founder of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art, talks to Artscoops about filling an artistic and cultural void in New York City                               What inspired you to set up the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art (IAIA)?    For me the project was...

Communication with a Cause    Communications and media services agency managing director and former gallery owner, Joumana Rizk-Yarak, flies the flag for art, social issues and other projects that are close to her heart, with a passion that is both tireless and enviable   Given that not many of us manage to combine our personal...

Playing with Perspectives   When it comes to cooking up some raw art, photographer Eddy Choueiry appears to have all the necessary ingredients     While three posters fixed on top of each other against a Beirut wall appeared to have little in common other than their positioning, something about the colours, composition and...

An Atypical Artist June Nabaa, daughter of the late, Lebanese painter Willy Aractingi, reminisces about her father’s influences, his family loyalties and her all-time favourite works   June on… …growing up in an artist’s household: My father was still busy working as a manager at Fattal Group when I was a child, but I do have...

The Power of the Void    Silence versus the said word, and the timeless relevance of our hopes, fears and dreams, are just some of the themes explored by Ghadeer Saeed in an exciting new online exhibition, available to view on the Artscoops platform       While many of us might consider ‘The sound of silence’ to be a somewhat...

Here's to the Healing  With a passion for compassion, the artist Zena el Khalil explores both the destruction that Lebanon has endured over the years and the country’s reawakening in an all-encompassing project taking place at Beit Beirut While there are many justifications for describing a new exhibition of works by the Lebanese artist...

 Landscapes, Legacies and Life Stories Through a Lens    Photographer, tutor and pioneer Jackie Leger talks reprography, scaling obstacles and the Arab world’s cultural heritage, ahead of Artscoops’ live auction on September 19th, which will showcase one of her outstanding works     Like many Westerners from her generation, the...

Beautiful Boundaries   While Beirut’s wrought iron handrails undoubtedly serve a functional purpose, a project by the architect in conservation, Mazen Haidar, reminds us that they are also a key component of the city’s rich architectural heritage, representing works of art in themselves     What made you decide to focus...