Open call: Ways of Traveling

The theme of Ways of Traveling emerges from a rich history of Arab travelers and scholars who traveled and wrote about the richness and differences (yet similarities) of the cultures they encountered. Travelers such as Ibn Battuta, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, Muhammad Al-Idrisi, Ahmad Ibn Majid and others used their narratives to enrich their own cultures and explore new often critical ideas about identity, communality and individualism. The Arab world has a long history of internal mobility and cultural exchange; and contemporary cultural practices continue to produce alternative and critical knowledge in defiance of the political stagnation and extremism associated with border disputes. Ways of Traveling seeks to honour John Berger’s legacy by improving our understanding of the relationships between the political and the aesthetic in all its forms. It aims to produce new insights and observations about politics, society, nature and culture in order to reimagine a region where time and space collapse, allowing people to come closer to each other; mountains, deserts and seas to converge; cultures to fuse; and souls to journey beyond their territorial entrapment.

Critical Research and Writing, Qattan Studio, Culture in Motion