Cairo renovation

I showed photos earlier this year of the renovated area in old Cairo, north of Khan el-Khalili. This set of flickr-photos from Al-Masry Al-Youm also highlights the renovation project, with all it's question-marks.

Inside the mosque

You've seen interiors before, I know, but I do think it so understatedly elegant (UAE-wise at least) that I am showing you again.

Zayed mosque again

On a humid hazy July morning, the Zayed mosque looked like this

Iran photos

Newsweek this week has a photo gallery from Iran, along with an article on one of their reporter's prison ordeal lately.

Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

I've blogged previously about the coming Louvre in Abu Dhabi - now the adjacent Guggenheim (also a really cool architectural creation too) is exhibiting here.

Alongside the Indian exhibition Spectrum is shown.

I hope to see both shortly.

PS Not all is shimmering with the coming museums though - read also Human Rights Watch.

Backlog

I have an entire memory card I cannot empty right now, which holds me back from showing you more photos, not least of the Abu Dhabi sheikh Zayed mosque. As soon as this is resolved, I hope to give you much more than I recently have been able to...

Troy - Anatolian fire

I saw the new performance Troy from the Turkish dance troop Ates anadolu (Fire of Anatolia) last night here in Abu Dhabi.

It was more story line (a sort of Turkish reclaim of the myth of Troy perhaps?) and less straightforward modernised Anatolian folkdancing than I remember of their original show, but impressive nonetheless of course. More technical than sensual though...

Armistice day

Today, 91 years ago, the First world War ended. In Sweden the picture of the war in confused and dominated by bloody trench stalemate on the western front, even if historian Peter Englund recently tried to familiarize a Swedish audience with a wider view.

For me, with the Middle East as prime reference, the First World War has very different and more dramatic connotations, with wide upheaval of a historic order of affairs and a total redrawing of the regional map, geographically and politically.

Remember also all those who have died in wars since, and who fight for values again today.

View of the mosque

I guess it pretty much speaks for itself, this view of the Abu Dhabi Sheikh Zayed mosque.

Photos of a Turkish family

Swedish photographer Stefan Bladh, whose photos, taken over several years, of a Turkish Alevi family in Gaziantep and Istanbul have been exhibited in galleries in Sweden, has now published a book of his photos, simply called The Family. The photos are powerful images of people and poverty in Turkey, just see how he uses the light and let's images of people speak for themselves.