As you may have noticed, there’s been quite the bustle at Kalimat over the past three days as we have just begun our crowdsourced fundraising campaign to print the upcoming issue. While doing some research on crowdsourcing (which is pretty interesting itself), I had the opportunity to reflect on some of Kalimat’s short and long-term goals and the personal importance of having a group like us around.
Over the past few years I’ve spent time in and out of various groups that have gathered around Arab issues (cultural, political, community-oriented), and often found it difficult to meet and work with other Arab-identified creative folks. I would hear about other people in the city (Toronto) and other places I would love to work with, to have a platform to share and publish their material and ideas, but found the single-issue groups that often sprung up—and quickly disappeared—too limited for the wide range of work we all had the potential to do.
Another issue I found was that there were only a couple ways to really be Arab. Even in casual talk, I found that people tended to treasure a pretty narrow set of qualities or achievements that were ancient or otherwise irrelevant. What about everything else that us as Arabs do?
As a creative platform, Kalimat is a place for that kind of creative free expression without losing one’s identity and maintaining a strong connection to it to the many other Arabs (and everyone else) who have an interest in producing or discovering our new, creative culture that is produced daily around the world.
Future is here. My first print-to-order magazine. (Taken with instagram)
Mobile vs. Internet vs. TV: Who Wins in the Arab World? Part Three: The Power of Mobile [Wamda TV]
Cairo, Egypt c. 1870
Photographer: Félix Bonfils
(via obliquecity)
Hikayat Khurafiyya min Amreeka
Title translation: Make believe stories from America
Translated from English by Safaa Zeitoun, cover illustration by Hijazi
Published by Dar al Fata al Arabi, no mention of date
(via bintbattuta)
Just favorited “‘BEST OF THE NOUGHTIES’ MIX FOR BBC RADIO 1/1XTRA” by Martelo on Mixcloud.com
pinch & schakleton - borocay drift [morphosis remix] honest jons
