Mandy Merzaban starts this personal essay with a memory of Salah Abu Seif's 1962 Egyptian musical film Ressala Min Emraa Majhoula (Letter from an Unknown Woman), which tells the story of a woman's unrequited love for a famous musician in 1950s Cairo. The memory acts as a starting point from which Merzaban takes readers on a journey that is at once subjective, performative, and methodological.

Katarzyna Falęcka examines the work of Algerian-French photographer Bruno Boudjelal, who travels frequently to Algeria, often keeping 'travel diaries' along the way in which images consistently question personal and cultural identity. Through cultural and technical observations, Falęcka builds a picture of Boudjelal that places him within a network of complex trans-cultural concerns.

Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist and writer Coco Fusco talks about her new book Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba (2015), which analyses performance art and political engagement in post-revolutionary Cuba. Fusco discusses how performance art can be defined; why performance art has been marginalized in Cuban society; and how this specific study might resonate with other regional histories.

Magdi Mostafa addresses sound's capacity to unearth lost feelings and images in this conversation, discussing sound's potential to create spiritual experiences within exhibitionary frames that tap into the tactics of performance. Mostafa reflects on how uncertainty and chemistry play a vital role in his practice, enabling a permeation between himself, the public, and sound.

'In 1980, my first Turkish gymnastic teacher gave me a tape of herself performing movements she had developed throughout her life,' writes Nancy Atakan. 'I selected four movements and taught them to my daughter-in-laws, my granddaughters, her former students, and my current Pilates teachers.'

'The Invisible Scent of History' is a screening programme of video works originally conceived as part of the project Visible/Invisible, Art & Politics. Presented at the Media Lounge in collaboration with the 104th International College Art Association Conference, it takes place from 3–6 February 2016 in Washington DC, and is co-hosted with the Middle East Institute in DC.

Performed live for fig-2 (48/50), at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, 30 November–6 December 2015.