Welcome to the latest post of the Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy’s Soft Power: The Monthly Roundup. Many exciting and meaningful cultural diplomacy projects took place this past May, with committed people from around the globe ensuring their success. Here’s a look at some of the highlights.
The following is a blog post by artist and designer Khalid Shafar, whose work is featured in Past Forward: Contemporary Art from the Emirates.
Jazz is one of those rare phenomena that resonate across cultures. Meridian couldn’t help but notice the recent American Security Project article by Chad Tragakis about the United States government’s mass export of this American music genre during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Jazz diplomacy, as it came to be known, introduced and shared a unique piece of American culture to the world by sending jazz legends, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, and Sarah Vaughan, to countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Since then, jazz music...
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This is the last post in this series about the arts and culture scene in the United Arab Emirates – the first featured events, and the second highlighted museums and galleries in the UAE. This third post focuses on government establishments throughout the UAE that supplement and support the arts and culture sector in the UAE by organizing and overseeing major cultural and artistic projects as well as preserving heritage sites. This post also highlights universities that have provided exceptional educational opportunities in the field of art to both UAE nationals and residents.
This blog post documents the second part of my Community Engagement through the Mural Arts exchange with Meridian and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
After Easter I returned to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to direct the next mural in the Colonia Estados Unidos. I was reunited with my team of assistants who I trained on mural painting techniques and community engagement strategies. This mural put what they learned into practice. Continue
