If you haven't heard of the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE) you will be properly impressed by their great ingenuities. [...] Now FAPE and Crayola are integrating art education with the artworks procured and developed for American embassies, and using them for the enlightened creativity of children in the broader United States school curriculum.

Hundreds of French mosques are participating in a major open-house event this weekend, offering visitors the opportunity to come in for tea and a chat about Islam in a country shaken by jihadist attacks. 

Shila Amzah is a Malaysian pop star famed as much for her fashion sense as for her powerful voice […] These days, though, she sings primarily in Mandarin […] In a country wary of Islam — the Chinese government has a fractious relationship with its ethnic Uighur minority in the western province of Xinjiang […] her rise is attributable to […] a rapidly evolving cultural relationship between China and Malaysia.

A Hungarian human rights lawyer and journalist who published a controversial series of portraits transposing her own face on to those of African women has been forced to remove her work after sparking widespread anger online […] But the photographs were taken down today after a series of satirical articles and angry blogs drew attention to the work described as offensive, patronizing and narcissistic.

Instagram is taking its photographs from phone screens to gallery walls, with its first-ever photography exhibition in India. Being held in Kolkata from Jan. 7 to 9, Bengal's Diversity in Pictures captures stories from the eastern Indian state through the lenses of local Instagrammers.

Following a dizzying sequence of events, including the Saudi execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr together with 46 others, the storming of the Saudi Embassy and the breakdown of diplomatic relations, Saudi Arabia and Iran have expanded their fight to the soccer pitch. Several Saudi clubs […] issued statements [...] demanding that they play Asian championship matches against Iranian squads at neutral venues.

In her examination of cultural diplomacy, Von Maltzahn looks briefly at its relationship with ‘soft power’, with the Europeans developing structured programmes between the world wars, followed lately by China, but with few Arab countries taking the practice seriously, other than recently through satellite television channels.  Compared to Iran, Syria has had little desire to propagate its culture abroad. 

The Parliamentary and Government taxpayer-funded art collections hold a combined 22,000 artworks, which are intended to promote British art and cultural diplomacy. But only a few of the pieces can be viewed for a fee by tourists visiting the House of Parliament, Sarah Cascone reports for artnet News.