Through documentation and archives, we keep our stories alive and true. At the book launch of Detainees & Disappeared, we discussed the importance of documentation in its many forms. In the case of this book, documentation also happens through art. It is one of the ways people express their experiences, preserve their memories, and reflect on their […]
The Arab British Centre is usually a calm space during the working week. By the evening, its rooms come alive with Durbaka classes and the sound of the oud drifting through the building. But on Monday of the launch of Notes from a Lost Country, the Centre felt different. It was filled with readers, writers, and visitors from different backgrounds, all gathered […]
The As We Are Creative Exchange Day was designed to bring together creatives from different backgrounds to share experiences and build new connections. Whether participants were navigating a career change, returning to creative practice after time away, or simply exploring something new, the day created a welcoming space for conversation, reflection, and exchange. The programme opened with Kareema […]
This film is a tale of joy, rebellion, agony, and triumph – one of many pasts as they intertwine with the many selves of the present. This is a story about choosing kins, defying families, and redefining motherhood. It is a story about change, transformation, and becoming, together with and through the other. Above all, […]
What do you do when you’ve got no choice but to leave everything behind? Or rather, what do you do when all you’ve ever known leaves you behind? Friends, family, the places that made you, the alleys that held you when you decided to run away as children – and where you kissed, decades later. What do you do when you witness history repeating itself, yet again, despite collective promises […]
This Eid al-Fitr, a former warehouse in Stafford was transformed into a place of worship with the installation of The Stafford Mihrab: a hand-stitched fabric artwork commissioned for the Stafford Muslim Community Centre’s new mosque, unveiled just in time for Eid 2026. The project is the culmination of Interlaced: Islamic Art in British Life, an […]
For the next stage of As We Are, Might Have Been and Could Be we are interested in finding out more about adults living in the UK, with a connection to one of the 22 Arab countries, who are not currently working in the arts but love to be creative. Through research, we found […]
From small group classes teaching practical skills in Arabic music, calligraphy and language, through to lectures delving into the art history of the Arab world, we’ve run courses for nearly two decades from our premises in central London and, more recently, online. At The Arab British Centre, we’re passionate about building and sharing knowledge in […]
As part of this year’s London Design Festival (LDF), V&A South Kensington presents Not Your Martyr, a memorial display by London-based Lebanese artist Ramzi Mallat, known for his evocative engagement with memory, loss and collective resistance. This display is curated by Rachel Dedman, the V&A’s Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East. Installed […]
I’m Sara, I’m currently an MA Comparative Literature student at SOAS, and this summer I was a curatorial intern at the Arab British Centre, facilitated by the SOAS summer internships scheme. When I first saw the job description, it was a perfect intersection of my British Iraqi identity, my experience teaching arts and music in […]