How did an art exhibit in an abandoned Hong Kong restaurant turn into an international mural festival based in Kakaako? The evolution of POW! WOW! Hawaii, an event known to contemporary artists around the world, started with local artist Jasper Wong. When he was based in Hong Kong in 2010, Wong set out to create art that focused on process and collaboration rather than sales potential.

But as part of the inaugural Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts (Asia Topa) in Melbourne, cultural categorisation is inevitable. Although not the festival’s overt aim, Asia Topa and festivals like it – including Adelaide’s OzAsia festival – categorise performers according to geography and culture in an attempt to improve a still underdeveloped relationship between Australia and its neighbours.

The International Committee of All Africa Music Awards has called on the new leadership of the AUC to forge a deeper integration of Africa through cultural exchange, as a way of creating a brighter future for her teeming youth and future generations. [...] “It is worthy of note that African artists are breaking stereotypical and geographical boundaries to make their mark on the music, culture and entertainment scene around the world.

When it comes to living in a democracy, Nato Thompson argues, nothing affects us more directly and more powerfully than culture. Culture suffuses the world we live in, from TV to music to advertising to sports. And all these things, Thompson writes in his new book, Culture as Weapon, “influence our emotions, our actions, and our very understanding of ourselves as citizens.”

Sixty years ago, at age 14, Daniel Barenboim made his debut at Carnegie Hall. He played Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in a program called “World Peace Through World Music.” This month, the Argentine-Israeli musician, educator and political activist is back at the New York City venue preparing to conduct the Staatskapelle Berlin, the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, in a cycle of nine symphonies by the 19th-century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner.