The Five Nominees for This Year’s Arab British Centre Award for Culture
By: Pamela Dimitrova/ Arab America Contributing Writer
The Arab British Centre has finally released the shortlist for its biennial Award for Culture, which spotlights individuals and organizations who have significantly contributed to the dissemination of Arab arts and culture and furthered dialogue and understanding of the Arab world in the United Kingdom.
The award series was established in 2008 for the purpose of raising awareness of contemporary Arab culture in the UK and to give financial support to individuals and organizations in the early stages of their career. The Award for Culture is a successor to the Arab British Culture & Society Award, which ran for four years between 2008 & 2011 and celebrated organizations which had made a considerable impact on the British public’s understanding of the life, society, and culture of the Arab world.
Some of the past winners of that prize were Al Saqi Books, Zaytoun, Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival and Al Jazeera English. In 2013 the first Arab British Centre Award for Culture was presented to the London-based, Iraqi playwright, Hassan Abdul Razaq, whose plays address issues in the Arab world. In 2015, the Award grew to honor both an individual and an organization, with playwright Hannah Khalil and arts and music events producer Arts Canteen taking the respective prizes.
For the first time in the award history, the shortlist for individual contributions this year is comprised entirely of women, who have succeeded in building cultural bridges with English-speaking audiences, igniting the discussion surrounding Anglo-Arab identity, championing inclusivity and empowering those around them.
Esther Manito
Esther Manito started doing stand up comedy on April 2016 and made it her mission to normalize the word Arab and challenge the misconceptions that dominate popular media.
In the last three and a half years Esther has achieved a wide range of accolades including: BBC New Comedy Award Nominee 4 years running 2016-2019, So You Think You’re Funny Finalist 2017, Bath Comedian of the Year Finalist 2017, Sussex Comedian of the Year 2019, was the first woman to perform comedy at Dubai Opera House and published author in the satirical collection “Don’t Panic I’m Islamic”.
Juliana Yazbeck
Born to Lebanese parents who returned to post-war Lebanon when she was only six, Juliana draws on her mixed cultural upbringing to create her signature sound: an unlikely but mesmerizing fusion of spoken word, otherworldly electronics, and haunting Levantine vocals. Her debut album ‘Sungod’ was self-released last year and featuring a fantastic combination of traditional Arabic sounds, electronica, rock, and hip-hop, finally gains traction.
Juliana recently headlined the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and Shubbak Festival and is currently writing new material and working on her Autumn 2019 shows.
Nadine Kaadan
Since the age of 8, Nadine Kaadan hasn’t stopped writing and illustrating children’s books – she simply knew that it was her calling in life. She started distributing her first children’s magazine to her 5th-grade classmates, and 20 years later she is an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator, whose mission it is to spread reading culture in the Arab world, in a way that is inspired by Syria’s rich heritage. Her stories sometimes touch on delicate subjects like children with special needs, or like the current troubled situation in the Arab world, and other times they are just plain fun.
Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings
Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings is a textile artist and designer whose use of intense colors and rich blending and layering techniques is influenced by her Sudanese upbringing and Arabic geometry. In 2015 she was selected by the British Council, in partnership with Shape Arts, for a residency in Qatar, and was commissioned to create work for the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha.
Samar Ziadat
Samar Ziadat is a co-founder of dardishi.com (a festival of Arab and North African womxn’s (according to the official site, the term ‘womxn’ includes non-binary and intersex people and trans women’), and a curator, educator, and activist based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her community-focused practice centers on issues of decoloniality and queerness. Currently, she is Community Outreach Coordinator at Glasgow Zine Festival, and a committee member at Transmission Gallery and the Scottish Queer International Film Festival. Previously, she was a Mophradat Art Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow and worked on key equalities projects at Glasgow Women’s Library. Samar also presents talks, delivers workshops, and produces zines that explore the hidden histories and under-acknowledged achievements of marginalized communities.
Every single one of the nominees has been ground-breaking as they have managed to use their work to engage non-Arab audiences when addressing Anglo-Arab identity whilst encouraging inclusivity. Amongst them are four organizations who draw attention to contemporary Arab culture and the arts, including Yemeni theatre and Lebanese hip hop. The organizations are charity The Barakat Trust, Sarha Collective, publisher Comma Press and events producer MARSM.
The winner of the British Centre award will be announced on 26 September, when a prize of around £2,500 will be awarded to the victorious entrant in each category (individual and organization) at a ceremony in London.
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