The culture of violence imposed by Israeli militarism disrupts and constrains creative practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Israel's recent war of aggression against Palestinians in Gaza, which began in early July 2014, serves as a brutal reminder that Israel is in full control of accelerating the future of Palestine's cultural de-development.

This paper is part of the research project 'The Pan-Arab Hangover', which focuses on the lingering ruins of Arab nationalism and how it plays out in the region's contemporary cultural production. It looks at Arabism's parent ideologies – notably German romanticism and idealism – and how 'unified Arabism' in art, culture, and writing is held up as a potential 'cure' to the region's problems.

'Who would have thought that the best translation ever to be conducted of the Qur'an was actually in Japanese?' Monira Al Qadiri examines a 1958 version of the Islamic holy book by Dr. Toshihiko Izutsu, who finished reading the entire Qur'an only one month after beginning to learn Arabic. In this essay, Al Qadiri unpacks some of Dr. Izutsu's insights, nearly all of which remain untranslated from their original Japanese.

'This is a speculative piece,' writes Samah Hijawi in this essay for Ibraaz Platform 009, 'in which I will try to unpack the relationship between artists' works in public spaces as performative gestures of active participation and critical citizenship; engagements with state security mechanisms of monitor and control.'

The New Kids On The Block (2011-12) is a project by Lebanese artist Randa Mirza, which to this date has never been presented before. This piece is the result of the artist's work, which began in October 2011, when she started working as an interpreter for Laure Stephan, a French journalist collaborating with Le Monde.

This interview follows the opening of Past Disquiet: Narratives and Ghosts from the International Exhibition for Palestine 1978 at MACBA Barcelona in February 2015, an archival and documentary show that takes the International Exhibition for Palestine of 1978 (organized by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut) as the starting point for an extensive research project. Here, Samah Hijawi talks to the exhibition's curators, Rasha Salti and Kristine Khouri.

Born in Italy as Lidia Guiseppe Scagnolari, Lidia Al-Qattan lived through the cruelties of Christian boarding schools and 'El Duce' Mussolini's Italy before moving to Kuwait in 1960, over half a century ago. She witnessed the rapid modernization of Kuwait from an empty desert-scape to one of the wealthiest countries in the world. In 1966, upon looking at the shiny reflections of a mirror her daughter had broken, Al-Qattan began to cover her entire house in mirror mosaics. In this interview, Monira Al Qadiri discusses this life project and its several phases.

Natasha Hoare speaks to artist Yazan Khalili and curator Lara Khaldi about their collaborative practice: performance lectures that draw together image, text, archive, film and sound through the epistolatory form. Often, their chains of communication form the public manifestation of shared research. Together, they create narratives that blend fact and fiction, temporality and geography, the intimate and the political.

In this interview with Göksu Kanak, Lina Majdalanie (previously known as Lina Saneh) challenges the concepts of 'East' and 'West' as dichotomies around which various elements of performance are situated – as opposing, unrelated histories within performance art as a field; as defined differing modes and styles; and as distinct, audience-specific perspectives.