Reflections: contemporary art of the Middle East and NorthAfrica brings together an extraordinary collection of workfrom the British Museum for the first time. The contemporaryart of the Middle East and North Africa is rich and vibrant.Whether living in their countries of birth or in diaspora,the featured artists are part of the globalised world of art.Here we see artists responding to and making work abouttheir present, histories, traditions and cultures, reflectingon a part of the world that has experienced extraordinarychange in living memory.The British Museum has been acquiring the work ofMiddle Eastern and North African artists since the 1980s,and the collection principally works on paper is one ofthe most extensive in the public sphere. Collected withinthe context of a museum of history, the works offer insightsinto the nature of civil societies, the complex politics of theregion, and cultural traditions in their broadest sense, fromthe relationship with Islamic art, to the deep engagementwith literature.The introduction to the book by curator VenetiaPorter explores the history of the collection and the worksincluded. The essential framework for understanding thepolitics and context within which the artists are workingis provided by Charles Tripp's essay. The works aregrouped into seven chapters, each beginning with a shortintroduction. The authors explore the selection withinthemes such as faith, abstraction, and the female gaze.