Hub Collective is an interdisciplinary platform started by a group of cultural activists interested in art and culture related to Palestine and the Arab world, who were inspired whilst living in the diaspora to form a collective that would encourage new ways of representing and thinking about Palestine and the broader Arab world. Our aim is to work alongside artists and creative thinkers throughout the world to showcase the range and diversity of innovative projects taking place in the region.

 

Founders came from different backgrounds, education, and disciplines: art, media, design, photography and film making. We define ourselves as a collective because we believe in working collaboratively with all participants in our projects. We also encourage anyone taking part in our projects to join our collective and to meet, discuss ideas and provide inspiration and support to one another.

 

Hub was formed out of a concern that so many of the progressive ideas that we have encountered are not being given due recognition or support. Our mission is to provide opportunities for audiences all over the world to learn about and participate in some of the many innovative projects taking place across the region through exhibitions, talks, performances, film screenings and other events. Hub Collective wants to create a space in which the most exciting artistic, practical and theoretical perspectives emerging from the Arab world today can be seen and heard alongside one another.

 

Hub Collective wants to challenge all forms of thinking that reduce the Arab world to grotesque generalizations. Such generalizations both distort the past and present and deny hope for future stability and autonomy in the region. We have seen how they have been used to justify the dominance of various political and economic interests in this part of the world and to legitimize war, colonization, and multiple other forms of repression.

 

The Collective rejects the characterization of the Arab world as a savage and fanatical region: repressive by nature and doomed to cyclical violence. We reject it as a region of romantic and sensual plenty: naive, easily exploited and seduced by the West. And we reject it as one homogenous entity: stagnant, anachronistic and in need of constant foreign intervention.