The artist Mona Hatoum aims to “expand the idea of a shaky ground to include the entire world.”1 The articles in this varia issue of Art in Translation discuss the topics of translation and transformation, and they underline that the global history of art and visual culture is complex, unexpected, and ever-changing—in some ways resembling Hatoum’s “shaky ground.” This issue’s articles foreground unpublished, original research on intercultural translation. While focusing on specific case studies or people, the articles address broader questions that have been at the heart of art history over recent decades: The authors lead us away from the deceptive paradigm of linear rise and decline and from the question of original and copy, which preoccupied art history for so long. They examine specific routes taken by objects and moments of cultural contact rather than searching for illusive origins, explore the development of specific phenomena, ideas, and symbols, and investigate the cultural, political, and personal context of art, artists, and art historians. Geographically this issue’s essay topics range from East Asia, to Southeast and South Asia, the Middle East and West Africa, with some references to European and North American art histories and art historiographies, thereby illuminating specific chapters in a global, interconnected history of art.