Spotlight on new NPOs: Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture

Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture (MKIAC) is a national award-winning arts organisation which leads cultural initiatives, artist development and events exploring and celebrating cultural diversity across the region. 

We connect communities through high-quality shared workshops, festivals and discussions in community centres, schools, colleges, galleries, libraries, museums, and outdoor spaces. We are proud to represent and promote social inclusion and a sense of belonging in Milton Keynes (MK), alongside key partners in the city.

I founded MKIAC in 2002, together with a group of community members, our chair George Child and Maryam Smit, our artist-in-residence. Last year, we celebrated our 20th anniversary. 

Changing the narrative around Muslimness

The establishment of MKIAC was fuelled by a deep-seated need to provide cultural representation to MK’s diverse communities, which now stand at 28.2% of the population. The timing around our founding is pertinent. It was a post-9/11 climate where hate crimes and mistrust were on the rise, and it was important to promote culture to change the narrative around Muslimness. 

It was important to change the narrative around Muslimness

As a lecturer at MK College, I knew first hand that working with young people was key to our mission. For Maryam, an artist, with an education from The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, the creative potential of Islamic arts to create positive associations and promote conversations between communities was limitless.  

MKIAC began with help from MK College, where we are embedded in the Equality & Diversity offering of the college. It plays an essential role in providing opportunities for students to engage with new artistic and cultural influences. 

Milton Keynes Community Foundation and Arts Council England understood the value we offered early on and, helped us to establish our first community festival, Art in the Park, which is now in its 13th year. 

Developing new audiences

Our work began in schools and has expanded to neighbouring towns in Buckinghamshire. It has also branched out to supporting refugee communities and engaging with local arts and culture institutions to develop new audiences and promote accessible and relevant narratives in arts and culture in the area. 

Working with a variety of mediums and themes means we are able to reach different demographics. Projects include the cultural relevance of food, world textiles, recycling and the climate emergency, poetry and spoken word and the role and history of community buildings. 

During the pandemic, our programming continued online with events to tackle loneliness and isolation, which was a lifeline to many. Creating opportunities for South Asian and Middle East/North Africa-region artists and creative professionals is also a core tenet of our work and defines how we operate.

Light projections on The Church of Christ the Cornerstone by Limbic Cinema i in collaboration with Aphra Shemza and Shenley Brook End School to celebrate Milton Keynes´ city status. Photo: Gill Prince

Achieving city status

One of the highlights in our 20 year history was supporting Milton Keynes in its bid to become a city, which was granted by Queen Elizabeth II as part of the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations. Milton Keynes was built with the optimism of the 1960s by idealistic young architects who achieved Britain’s largest and most successful new town. Milton Keynes is pioneering in many ways, and this is underlined by its arts and heritage sector. 

As part of the application, the Council brought together 50 key people to help develop the bid, of which MKIAC was a part. The bid included many compelling reasons as to why we deserved city status, but we represented the case for our rich heritage and the strong volunteer culture, both of which we have worked hard to develop. 

In the long term, it was important to Milton Keynes to become a city because of the potential for it to benefit local economies and improve our national and global standing. In the shorter term, it provided an opportunity for the city to come together and celebrate after the pandemic. 

With MK Council, we staged an unforgettable event to celebrate our new city status. Featuring Eurovision star, Sam Ryder and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, alongside local bands and community performers. The Church of Christ the Cornerstone was lit up by a specially commissioned projection by Limbic Cinema, Laser Light City illuminated the city’s skies and Bletchley Park mansion had projections from students at the South-Central Institute of Technology, supported by the immersive storytelling agency, MBD. The event, now in its fourth year, formed part of the finale of The City of Codes and Light, a week-long initiative which brings diverse communities together to celebrate art, science, maths and technology in Milton Keynes. 

The road to NPO status

In 2022, we were successful in achieving NPO status, our second time applying. It has given us economic stability that will allow us to focus on our community work. It was the long and fruitful association with ArtReach that helped us to achieve this – one of our ultimate goals. 

Our ambitions for the future include strengthening our youth work, especially supporting young people and emerging artists from diverse communities. We want to focus on topics which define their generation: the climate emergency, and issues around mental health. 

Providing opportunities for creative expression is an important way that we do this. The two annual festivals, Art in the Park, and City of Codes and Light have now become permanent fixtures on the Milton Keynes cultural calendar. 

We will continue to engage different communities with artists who challenge stereotypes and who define the vibrancy of Milton Keynes. As one of the UK’s fastest-growing cities, with thriving communities, it is more important now than ever that our work continues to be relevant and representative of the city and communities we serve. 

Anouar Kassim MBE is Founder and Director of Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture.
 www.mkiac.org
@MKIAC