Manchester to take part in the Festival of Muslim Cultures 2006
12 May 2005
The Festival of Muslim Cultures, a celebration that places contemporary and traditional Muslim Cultures centre stage in the UK, is developing a programme of arts events in partnership with a wide range of leading arts organisations.
The role of the Festival is to inspire collaboration, to coordinate the results of those collaborations and to produce an exciting programme that will have a long-term impact on the cultural landscape of the UK.
Highlights of the developing programme are:
World music events with the best international artists
A Festival of contemporary film with leading international participants
A Humanities Festival addressing the most urgent issues today
Poetry and literature events across the UK
Exhibitions of historic and contemporary art with some of the UK’s leading museums and galleries
A life-style fair of food and fashion from the Muslim world
Parties and opening and closing celebrations
The Festival’s projects and programmes will take place both in London and in a number of partner cities across the UK, in particular those with significant Muslim populations. These include the Yorkshire region, Leicester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Manchester.
Amongst the long-term outcomes of the Festival will be the transmission of artistic skills through Creative Skills Workshops. Leading Muslim artists, architects, film-makers, writers, poets, dancers and musicians are being invited to lead training schemes for young Muslims and non-Muslims.
As part of the schools programme, information on the arts, history, religion and civilisations of Islam will be made available on the Web for all teachers to use as a teaching resource in schools. Muslim school children will also be invited to take part in a video mapping project called Young, British and Muslim, in which they are the film-makers.
