Strong works of art, even if generated by a specific locale or concern, communicate meaning on multiple levels and transcend geopolitical boundaries. Artworks that operate on a surface level only…

[caption id="attachment_55243616" align="alignnone" width="620"] Children sit down for lunch in the Syriac Orthodox church hall in Acton, London after their communion. AMY ASSAD[/caption]It is July…

[caption id="attachment_55243547" align="alignnone" width="599"] Aissa DeebiThe Trial (2013), video.Exhibition view at Otherwise Occupied, a collateral event of the 55th Venice Bienniale.(Photo…

[caption id="attachment_55243359" align="aligncenter" width="620"] People visit a book hall at the twenty-first Tehran International Book Fair on the city's congregational prayer site on May 4, 2008…

[caption id="attachment_55243329" align="alignnone" width="620"] Artists place artwork inside the occupied Ministry of Culture in Egypt. ATI METWALY[/caption]Ever since Islamists entered Egypt’s…

[caption id="attachment_55243244" align="alignnone" width="620"] Syrian Orthodox Christians attend a mass marking Palm Sunday on April 28, 2013 at the Saint-Elias church in Damascus. LOUAI BESHARA…

[caption id="attachment_55243216" align="alignnone" width="620"] Inside Beirut's Inglot store. HANNAH LUCINDA SMITH[/caption] Hamra was thronging with early drinkers and late-night shoppers on a…

[caption id="attachment_55243112" align="alignnone" width="620"] Iraqis watch a movie during a screening at the Kurdish Film Festival in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. SHWAN MOHAMMED/AFP…

[caption id="attachment_55242881" align="alignnone" width="620"] Istanbul circa 1955. The Galata neighborhood can be seen in the foreground overlooking the Golden Horn. Hulton Archive/Getty Images[…

[caption id="attachment_55242592" align="alignnone" width="620"] Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi. (Tam Hussein)[/caption]In 2012, Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi went from being Sudan’s most celebrated poet to a political…