Photos from history, the mundane and the surreal: Where to be this weekend in the Middle East

L'Orient-Le Jour

17 hours ago

Happy August, the busiest month in any Lebanese (or Lebanese-adjacent) life. To properly keep up with your overwhelming schedules, L'Orient Today, in partnership with The MYM Agenda, will guide you every Thursday through cultural happenings across the Middle East that are actually worth your time.
Consider this your weekly shortcut to what matters in the region's buzzing cultural scene.
This month, Beirut is itching to bring fun back into our lives. If the same old bars and restaurants have been boring you to death, here's where you can spend your time instead:
What started as a photography competition and a way to mentor emerging voices in photography has bloomed into Through Young Eyes, running this month in Art District, Gemmayzeh. Showcasing 10 emerging artists — who couldn't be more different from each other — the exhibition is your chance to peek into young people's everyday lives. They take your hand through their parties, the streets of Beirut and the stories behind their self-portraits.
Get used to the names of Cyril Harb, Andre Jahel, Bassel Ramadan, Brin Cloud, Charly Zgheib, Chris Nassar, Luana Tabbara, Manal Salameh, Nadim Nassar and Serge al-Helayel.
Every Tuesday night this month, when the Beirut breeze finally settles in, you can join Metropolis Cinema in Mar Mikhael, in their green outdoor garden, and get whisked back to the golden age of Egyptian musical cinema. Grab your favorite parent or aunt and revisit classic favorites with them: Asmahane, Shadia, Naima Akef and Souad Hosny.
You only have until next week to catch Bassam Freiha Art Foundation's Reclaiming Visions in the Cultural District, Abu Dhabi. While pictures and stories are our way to keep history alive, they also allow us to have our own interpretations of events. This is your chance to step into photographers and artists Sama al-Shaibi and Azza al-Qubaisi's interpretations, as the two take on the daunting task of reimagining what 19th-century portrayals of Arab women would have been if they were accurate to the subjects' true characters.
Shaibi uses historic photo techniques to place herself in scenes that echo and subvert the exoticized studio setups of Western photographers. In contrast, Qubaisi's poetic sculptures explore the symbolism of the veil, bridging Christian and Muslim traditions with reimagined forms of the abaya and ghonnela.
Fann À Porter in Jumeirah, Dubai, is holding their annual Summer Group Exhibition, showcasing a selection of diverse mediums in dialogue together, connected by themes of introspection, identity, transformation and peace. The space is a feast for the eyes: bright and overly-saturated oil paintings, bold and creative works of ceramic and the exploration of charcoal and coffee paper as artists' tools.
Walk into the world of your ancestors this summer at the Yarmouk Cultural Centre in Kuwait. As part of its 2025 campaign to put the country on the global culture map, the center is using centuries' worth of artefacts to tell you the stories of the evolution of ancient Arab script, kingdoms and early societies.
Jerusalem-based multimedia artist and performer Raeda Saadeh is showcasing her latest work in Darat al-Funun, Amman, Jordan. Her exhibition lays bare to you herself and her world through pictures, videos and performance art. Saadeh particularly loves the tension between upheaval and routine in the everyday.
Her stories are told through the mundane's silence, pause and what is left unsaid.
For the next two weeks, Motion Art Gallery in Cairo, Egypt, is displaying the weird and wonderful world of painter Mostafa Saifoon. His portraits of intimacy are like looking at your loved ones through Alice in Wonderland's distorted looking glass.