Contemporary art is now inclusive of geographies that until recently had escaped the attention of Western art centres such as Paris and New York. A vast area commonly referred to as the Middle East constitutes part of an "emerging geography" whose art has finally become globally visible. The region's artists, however, are neither fixed inside its territories nor permanently diasporic. Often on the move, they define themselves and the world according to their personal visions. Safar: Voyage (voyage being the translation of its equivalent in Persian) is a visual essay, bringing together a selection of these artists and displaying fragments of their itineraries. AUTHOR: Fereshteh Daftari received her PhD in art history from Columbia University. She worked in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1988 to 2009, and curated a number of exhibitions, including "Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking."Jill Baird is the curator of education and public programs at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Her research and writing interests include arts and cultural education that challenge museums to respond to diverse communities. ILLUSTRATIONS: 50 colour images
