The Middle East was particularly grim the year Alicia B. Adams, vice-president of international programming for Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, set a date for Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World. George W. Bush’s “shock and awe” campaign was overwhelming Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was intense. “We kept waiting for everything to improve in terms of the political situation,” says Adams. “That never happened. So we decided – whether it does or not, we’re going forward.” Thus, in 2003, as the world watched Saddam Hussein’s statue being ripped from its plinth in Baghdad, Adams put the Arabesque festival on the books.

Six years later, Adams has curated the largest Middle Eastern arts and culture festival in American history. Eight hundred singers, dancers, painters, musicians and actors have been invited to take part in a three-week event set to expose America’s capital to the region’s most innovative artists. Paying homage to the Middle East’s history and antiquity was high on Adams’ agenda, yet the festival’s beating heart centres on contemporary artistry. “It’s important to show what is going on now, in order to push our audiences,” explains Adams. “[Americans] hardly have any images of normal life there, which includes what people enjoy, or what artists are doing.”

Positioned on the centre’s second floor is the festival’s visual arts exhibition. At the entrance is a small atrium of chocolate-coloured mashrabiya, or wood latticework. Common in Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, these ornate wooden screens were originally created to add a level of privacy for homes based in urban centres. The effect of the perforated panes is to allow the women of the house to see without being seen. Arabesque exhibition designer Adrien Gardère succinctly chose the semi-cavernous space to house “Breaking the Veils”, a collection of 29 contemporary paintings by female Arab artists curated by the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.

Just opposite sits Lebanese artist Lara Baladi’s human-scale kaleidoscope, “Roba Vecchia”. After stepping inside Baladi’s triangular prism, human features are instantly cloaked in black and projected against a perpetual set of images accumulated from Japan and Cairo. The pictures morph into various fractured shapes, eventually turning into what Baladi calls “digital trash” as they are replaced by additional imagery.

Despite similarities between the contours of her designs and those of an arabesque – the decorative geometrical shape often found on the walls of mosques – there is nothing distinctly Arab about Baladi’s piece. But that, according to the artist, is precisely the point. “Yes, this is an Arab festival with Arab artists, but this work is about an experience of mine in Japan and my relationship to a world that is not contextualised,” says Baladi. “We are not just part of the Arab world, but the entire world.”

The sultry, hand-painted photographs from Egyptian artist Youssef Nabil seek to challenge any preconceived notions of what art from the Middle East might look like. Eschewing a traditional gallery set-up, Nabil instead recreated the setting that inspired his work: evenings watching mid-century Egyptian cinema in bed with his family. The room’s most prominent feature is a six-metre-long bed adorned with a collection of pillows covered in Nabil’s portraits. The scene is enhanced by the sounds of Egyptian movie scores. Nabil hopes his photos of provocatively stylised Arab and non-Arab subjects will help audiences rethink hackneyed notions of the region. “The time is right to show another story of the Arab world,” explains Nabil, “not just the religious and female clichés perpetuated by the media”.

Adams was resolute that the festival should include a homage to Arab contributions to science made during the Middle Ages, which, she explains, were essential in paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance. Thus, at the exhibition’s epicentre is the Exploratorium, a 12-minute film displayed on a disc lodged in the ceiling. Audiences recline as they watch mosque domes dance across the screen alongside pages of early Arabic texts elucidating arithmetic and scientific discoveries. The short film quickly establishes how these breakthroughs remain part of our lives to this day. “All cultures have borrowed from others,” says Adams.

The festival, starting nearly a month after Barack Obama’s inauguration, is particularly timely this year. The capital’s altered political landscape has already injected a sense of urgency in dealing with the Middle East, making the potential impact for an event like this significant. Cynthia Schneider, a cultural diplomacy expert for Washington DC’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, hopes the Kennedy Center’s overture to the region is taken as an opportunity by many DC policymakers to increase cross-cultural awareness. “I think Congress’s exposure day after day to the festival is bound to shape and change their perception,” she says. “If [people are] open to it, arts and culture can increase understanding. We can then use cultural diplomacy to change our relationship to the world.” Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World, John F Kennedy Center, Washington DC, until March 15. www.kennedy-center.org