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Co-Created Projects

Home Co-Created Projects

In 2022 Amal launched the co-created projects strand that lies at the heart of its Amal Connects programme. Working with community groups, artists, and arts and cultural organisations in our hub locations of Birmingham and Bradford, Amal supported projects producing high-quality artwork through a journey of co-creation between Muslim-majority core project participants and mainly Muslim creative practitioners.

Their work was then showcased in the community and at arts venues providing a focus for participatory sessions that enable cross-community encounter. This series of 12 projects has provided opportunities that would not otherwise exist for Muslims to realise their creative potential and to share and celebrate this creativity with others.

The Projects

The programme built on learning from Amal’s previous experience and on consultation of community groups and artists to ensure that the work we support directly reflects the experience, concerns and priorities of Muslim communities.

Print & Matter, Birmingham

Print & Matter gave Muslims in Birmingham the skills and a platform to explore connections between religious practice and artistic expression.

The Nasheed Choir, Bradford

A project developing a new form of Nasheed music blending Muslim, British and South Asian heritages, performed by boys previously new to singing to a packed Bradford Cathedral.

From Soil, to Clay, to Home, Birmingham

By exploring the concept of home and creating with clay, asylum seekers in Birmingham together built a new community and a new story of home.

Quranic Illumination, Bradford

Local Muslims went on a journey learning the ancient art of Quranic Illumination, bringing this beautiful Muslim cultural tradition to Bradford.

Stories Through Nokshi Kantha, Birmingham

Women captured stories of their journeys from Bangladesh to Birmingham through drama techniques and told them through Nokshi Kantha, an embroidery heritage art form.

Salt Eaters, Bradford

Salt Eaters shared a lost Muslim folk dance with hundreds of young women in Bradford, and used cutting-edge hologram technology in a community space.

Salaam'O'Salaam, Bradford

A pioneering dance project modelling a network of UK-based Muslim breakers, taking to the streets and spaces of Bradford and beyond.

Sight & Sound, Birmingham

Sight & Sound provided diverse arts workshops to Muslim women in Birmingham with limited access to the arts and a platform to exhibit their artwork at major arts venues.

Cloudsongs, Bradford

Through the co-creation of a light and sound installation, homeschooled children and other students in Bradford shared their experiences through public art.

Small Heath Voices, Birmingham

Residents from underrepresented Muslim Kashmiri and other minority backgrounds told the story of their home, Small Heath in Birmingham, in images and words.

Soap Box, Bradford

A project developing the inherent creative skills of Muslims seeking sanctuary, enabling them to amplify their voices and share their stories, cultures and traditions.

Kahaani, Bradford

A project that helped Muslim women tell their stories of migration to Bradford, developing their performance skills and enabling them to tell their stories on stage.

Participant Testimonial - Print & Matter

“The project invites other people to come in and see what they are doing, and understand that this is a really diverse, imaginative group of people who have a voice, and it's a voice that we have not always heard. And it's fresh, and it's new, and it's interesting, and it's vibrant.”

Participant Testimonial - Sight & Sound

“I loved art when I was younger, but I wasn’t allowed to go into it but now I can.”

Audience Member Testimonial - Quranic Illumination

“A lot of these skills that have been used to create this artwork, they’re dying skills and they need to be shared.”

Amal Connects' Donors

Enormous gratitude to our generous donors for their exceptional support.