Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has opened one of the world's biggest collections of Pacific artwork at an event in Sydney. More than 60,000 artefacts from 16 Pacific nations and territories are on display at the Australian Museum's Pacific Spirit exhibition, which opened today.Ms Bishop told Pacific Beat she "jumped at the chance" to support the gallery, as part of a wider campaign of cultural outreach within Australia and across the Pacific.

The selection of a gown for a state dinner is always a matter of sartorial politics, cultural exchange and U.S. Chamber of Commerce-style marketing... It was also a beautiful example of fashion diplomacy.

Ambreen Butt has always made political art. Early in her career, the Pakistani-born artist now based in the Boston area investigated the tug of two cultures in mixed-media paintings and drawings. (...) Her current installation at Carroll and Sons, “I Am All What Is Left of Me,” was inspired by a commission from the State Department’s Art in Embassies program for the new US Embassy in Islamabad.

The Expo is not only to be experienced, but also remembered. As it is a concentrated temporal social occurrence, the outsized event rivets visitors’ attention and fascination. Transient as the Expo experience is, one’s impression of it can be long-lasting.

A couple of million people visit the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, each year to see the world-famous works of art, such as “The Annunciation,” “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” and “Las Meninas.” Now, for the first time, the museum is attracting a set of patrons who are able to experience the artwork in a different way: By touching it.

It clarifies Cuba in America's official narrative not as a security threat but a country in transition, which is more in line both with Cuba's own self-image and how Latin American and European countries see it. Such a description undermines any rationality for the embargo and lends itself to a U.S. policy that emphasizes engagement and people to people contacts.