Nahla Ink Online Journal

Arts Canteen presents Flamenco Arab. World-class Attab  Haddad  and his Ensemble create story-like compositions with the breadth of the Sahara and the intricacy of the Alhambra Palace.   Drawing on roots in both Middle Eastern music and Flamenco, the vibrant ensemble plays original fresh compositions laced with contemporary jazz and classical flavours to create a sound that is unique to the band – a group which is made up of some of the UK’s finest musicians ...

Exhibition Dates: 15 April-30 June, 2021  “I have no fear here, in this world of trees, weeds, and growing things” – bell hooks The Mosaic Rooms presents 'To The Sour Sowers', a new work by London-based artist Abbas Zahedi, who has designed a risograph print as an impermanent marker of loss and renewal. The risograph is printed on seeded paper, textured by a mix of wildflower seeds and offset by a bright lemon sky. The artist requests participants to directly intervene in his work. ...

Exhibition Dates: 1-30th June, 2021 Curator: Mishelle Brito Artist: Zain Al-Sharaf Wahbeh Beneath the visible national territory of Jaffa-Tel Aviv lies the contested urban arena of Al-Manshiyya. This long-forgotten neighbourhood offers a layered playing field of territorial tug-of-wars, paramilitary clashes, punitive demolitions, and gentrified overwrites. Because Al-Manshiyya has faced a rigorous urban evolution under the Zionist occupation, between 1948 to the present day, it best exemp...

Aflamuna (“our films” in Arabic) is a non-profit streaming platform, made by Beirut DC, to share Independent Arab Cinema with audiences across the World. Each month, a new curator explores a social, political or cultural theme through a hand-picked selection of cult, contemporary, classic and independent Arab films. Every week, a new film is made available to our subscribers. Aflamuna is also a space for socio-political and critical thought around independent Arab cinema. Original essays u...

Renowned oud player and composer, Adnan Joubran’s compelling career has spanned the globe from Palestine to Paris, New York and back. Hailing from a family synonymous with the oud, Adnan grew up in a fourth generation family of oud makers and players. Joining his two older brothers in 2005 to form the now iconic 'Le Trio Joubran', the Trio have gone on to release award-winning albums, and compose for numerous films and documentaries, such as the Oscar-nominated ‘Five Broken Cameras’. Nearl...

The London Syrian Ensemble is a stunning collective of eight musicians and graduates from Syria’s renowned Damascus Conservatoire. Led by composer and Ney soloist Louai Alhenawi, this show marks the worldwide debut of their new project ‘Sounds of Syria’. This dynamic and emotional work brings to the stage, for the first time, new instrumental arrangements by composers from Syria and portrays the impact of ten years of war on the work of their music, both at home and abroad. For ticke...

Arabs Are Not Funny is back on stage with Isabelle Farah MC, Talal Karkouti, Sezar Alkassab and Fatiha El-Ghorri. You might have thought that Arabs couldn’t get any funnier. Think again. After over a year of hibernation, four of the funniest Arabs in London are back on stage, in the flesh, funnier than ever before. We cannot wait to bring ‘Arabs Are Not Funny’ to the cool people of Islington, live from The Old Queen’s Head, a Grade II listed building from the 1830s (w...

Exhibition Dates: 24 June-10 July, 2021 'Unnarrated' is an installation by the ElZi Collective which uses fragmented moving image,  reflection and performance to dismantle Western notions of knowing in relation to feminine  spirituality in North Africa. Curated by Mishelle Brito, Unnarrated explores oral histories and notions deconstructing  what is beyond language and communication within the context of North African cultures. For this exhibition, the ElZi Collective researched spirituali...

Exhibition Dates: 24 June-10 July, 2021 Artist: Pam Skelton Curator: Iliyana Nedkova The P21 Gallery is delighted to present 'We Refuse to be Scapegoats' – the first UK solo exhibition in the last ten years by the established British artist of mixed Eastern European Jewish heritage Pam Skelton. The exhibition is curated by Iliyana Nedkova, specifically for the gallery and will be open to the public between 24 June and 10 July 2021 in line with all public health regulations. The exhib...

The emergency is here! From 16 July-14 November, 2021 you can join the 23rd Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) – an artist-led response to the complexities of the climate emergency in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region today. The climate emergency is the greatest threat to our planet. Its dire impact is already being disproportionately felt in the MENA region, an area which has faced unprecedented climatic events in recent years. Scorching temperatures, rising sea levels and ...

Shubbak Festival Dates: 20 June-17 July, 2021 Ten years after the Arab Spring Shubbak, London’s biennial festival of contemporary Arab culture, returns with an ambitious programme reflecting on people, connections and ideas in a fundamentally unsettled world. The sixth edition of the Shubbak Festival: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture runs from 20 June-17 July, 2021. Born out of the rupture across Arab countries ten years ago, Shubbak 2021 returns with an ambitious programme that connects ...

SAFAR Festival Dates: 1-17 July, 2021 The SAFAR Film Festival will be running this summer in partnership with the Shubbak Festival, Europe's biggest festival of Arab culture. Founded in 2012, SAFAR is the only UK festival dedicated to showcasing films from the Arab world. This year it is also proud to be sharing the largest ever programme of films both in London cinemas and online to UK audiences. The 2021 edition of SAFAR is curated by Rabih El-Khoury around the theme of 'Generational ...

Arts Canteen and AWAN festival bring you a night of London talent, featuring a phenomenal range of London-based Arab female DJs, spoken word poets, music and rap artists in an evening that firmly places women’s creativity centre stage. The stellar line-up features Yomn Al-Kaisi, whose work explores grief, love and identity; Tasneim Zyada, a perfectly calm storm on the spoken word scene; Rayane Chami a poet championing community with a passion for heavy emotions; and Bint Mbareh, a...

Exhibition Dates: 7 May–15 August, 2021 Hosted by the British Museum, this display weaves together a rich tapestry of artistic expression from artists born in, or connected to, countries from Iran to Morocco. With drawings by artists trained everywhere from Paris to Jerusalem, and subject matters ranging from the Syrian uprisings to the burning of the National Library of Baghdad, it offers new views of societies whose challenges are well-known in the press but are little known through th...

Born in the Libyan City of Benghazi, Ahmed Fakroun looked set to make his mark in world music circles in the mid-1980s when is album Mots D’Amour, combining traditional Arab melodies with electronic music, was released on the Celluloid label in France. Years of international sanctions impeded Libyan citizens’ freedom of movement and he spent long periods abroad in the 70s and 80s. However, in the last ten years he has come to prominence on the club scene when some of his early songs were r...

Exhibition Dates: 25 June-26 September, 2021 Private View: 5-8pm, 24 June, 2021 The Mosaic Rooms presents the first UK solo exhibition by Berlin-based art collective Fehras Publishing Practices. 'Borrowed Faces: Future Recall' looks at the Cold War and its effect on cultural practices in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa region, which generated one of the most fertile periods in the history of Arab culture and publishing. The exhibition is part of the 2021 Shubbak Festival. Artis...