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[caption id="attachment_917" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Monique Bellan (right) and Nadia von Maltzahn (left) in the "Salon Room" of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, November 2016[/caption]Projects in this cluster share an interest in the political character of innovation in culturalproduction, of forms of articulation and of publicness. In particular, this cluster dealswith processes of transformation of existing aesthetic, political and social orders, aswell as with the reflection, and possibly the theorisation, of artistic practices. The roleof institutions in shaping identities – and be it by rejecting the institution – is central tothe analysis.Apart from two individual projects that will be introduced in future blog posts, Monique Bellan and Nadia von Maltzahn have also initiated a number of joint projects within the framework of the cluster. One of these deals with the question of challenges posedby the migration of institutional patronage, as in the case of the art salon in the Arabregion that emerged in the colonial and post-colonial context in cities like Tunis, Cairo,Damascus and Beirut. A symposium, organised with the Sursock Museum and taking place in Beirut on 27 and 28 October 2017, will discuss the emergence of the art salon in the region in the colonial and post-colonial context, reflect on knowledge circulation between Europe and the Middle East, and analyse the function of the art salon in relation to collecting practices and the public. Another joint project looks at questions of liberation and emancipation in art and cultural practices in the region, by examining the relationship between cultural players and authority. The agency of the artists or cultural players is in the foreground, positioning them within their time and space.The projects in this cluster adopt a transregional perspective either by analysingdevelopments and phenomena in different countries in the region and beyond, or byrelating the analysis of a particular country to its regional and international context.The translation and circulation of knowledge and practices is another field the clusterlooks at, by taking into account the role of networks and the interconnectedness ofdevelopments that relate the different regions of the world to each other.Cluster Projects: Cultural Policies in Lebanon: Cultural Institutions between state and society (Nadia von Maltzahn) Talking About Art: Aesthetic reflection in Egypt and Lebanon (Monique Bellan)