Making positive connections has been the mission of AramcoWorld since its first edition 75 years ago. In the words of former Aramco President Bill Moore in Volume I, No. 1: “We hope this publication will enable us to get better acquainted with ourselves.” In the same way each month, we hope this calender connects to some of the people and stories we have highlighted over the past 75 years.

By tackling often overlooked societal issues, Palestinian-born Sami Kafati’s body of work has shaped Honduran cinema even years after his passing.

For more than 40 years, British photographer Peter Sanders has documented communities across the Islamic world. Sanders discusses his legacy with us, including his inspiration and influences over the course of his career.

Azza Fahmy has become a legend in the world of artisanal jewelry from the Middle East. Her designs, now some of the most sought after in the Arab world and internationally, have long championed the history and culture of Egypt and the greater region with contemporary style, forms and vision—often with references to Pharaonic symbolism, Mamluk architecture, Egyptian modernism and vernacular cultures.

Visits to Spain in 1922 and 1936 led Dutch artist M.C. Escher to discover the world of designs in Granada’s 13th-century Alhambra palace, where interlocking patterns in tiles and stucco on its walls and ceilings became springboards to ideas that shaped his art for the rest of his life.

Although now one of the most acclaimed writers in the Arabic world, Ibrahim al-Koni spent his earliest years completely immersed in the language and stories of Tuareg oral culture-a historically nomadic Berber tribe in northwest Libya.

Photography “speaks directly to your emotions,” says Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo, which holds the world’s leading contest for news and documentary photography. Since she joined in 2021, she has organized six new global partnerships to “be our guides” and diversify the images and themes that earn annual awards for top visual storytelling. And she isn’t a photographer.

Except for a rare self-portrait, Bibi Zogbé painted flowers—exuberant and confident, as well as modern and symbolic, her paintings reflect her life between her native Lebanon and three decades in Argentina.

Telling stories about life journeys may not be what most people think tap dancers do, but that is where Andrew Nemr taps his way into a deeper root of the art.