Culture Resource (Al Mawred Althaqafi) is a key player in the landscape of independent cultural organizations that enhance freedom of artistic expression and cultural rights in the MENA region. Al Mawred’s mission is to support artistic creativity in the Arab region and to encourage cultural exchange within the region and beyond.
Al Mawred strongly believes in the critical role of culture in the development of civil society, the importance of access to culture for all, and in the rights of artists to freedom of expression. Since its inception in 2004, Al Mawred has supported hundreds of artists, cultural actors and cultural institutions through grants, capacity building, publications and networking, promoting independent creative works on a regional and international level, and improving the environment for cultural work through policy research and action.
Out of its head office in Beirut, Culture Resource offers its services across the twenty-two countries that comprise the Arab region, as well as to artists from the region in diaspora. Embracing the cultural diversity of the Arab region, Al Mawred recognizes the wealth of historical cultural references that most Arab countries share, and have accumulated throughout centuries, as a result of linguistic, religious, environmental and geographical affinities. The task of serving such a broad constituency, representing the diversity of Arab cultural expression in all its forms, requires a careful consideration of program design and outreach, and diversity on the level of governance. Culture Resource was established in part to stimulate and lead such efforts and build on the potential for wide distribution of cultural products within the Arab region, as well as opportunities for joint work and shared learning amongst Arab creators.
Mimeta has partnered with Culture Resource since 2011 . Our partnership has contributed to both the organizational and programmatic development of Al Mawred. Our support to its cultural policy program has empowered a new generation of cultural researchers, academics and policy makers in the Arab region, laying the foundation to advocate for cultural policies that meet the universal rights to culture, while improving the local environment for cultural work in seven countries in the region.
Mimeta has also supported Al Mawred’s Abbara program, which has seeded, in the last ten years, sixty new arts and culture organization, providing them with the skills and resources to develop into independent institutions that can further enhance creative expression in the MENA region. In 2022, our partnership with Culture Resource extends our support to its cultural policy work through the All Around Culture program. It also includes support to Stand for Art Program, that collaborates with international organizations like ICORN, and Artist at Risk Connection (ARC), as well as with Arab organizations like L’Art Rue and Ettijahat to provides protection to artists at risk.
