PROJECTS
With over 20 years of successful projects, Arts Without Borders is still going strong, providing quality arts practice and services to diverse communities across the UK and beyond.
Dr Canan Salih
Artistic Director
Previous Projects
2000 - Writing on the Wall – A cross Arts project about two conflicting diaspora communities in London. It was a huge success and ran for 4 sold out nights.
2001 - Some Things Never Come – was a devised project created by a group of five actors, based on comedy incidents at a bus stop, this debuted at Chats Palace.
2002 - A Proper Gander – a collaboration with Arcola Theatre and various youth arts agencies from Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets Arts & Events. Performed at Arcola Theatre and looked at young people's perception of the media machine.
2006 - Nine to 5am – stage performances and film sequences - unravels stories from 9pm to 5am, at The Venom Rooms nightclub tackling issues of binge drinking, sexual relations, money, power and violence.
2009-13 - Language of Diaspora – A four-year cross arts PhD thesis project, in collaboration with Dr Canan Salih (Artistic Director) and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama:
* Who am I? – young participants investigated the history behind the Turkish Cypriot Diaspora from 1945-74 through weekly workshops.
* Disgraceful Waste of Space – Turkish Cypriot young people perform their Diaspora identity in public spaces - filmed by each participant.
2012 - Acimasiz Gercekler – hosted by London Saz School in Stoke Newington, young Turkish-speaking participants create short films.
2010-19 - Raw Talent - Funded by London Borough of Tower Hamlets various youth oriented funds, Raw Talent has always been about Camapigning Arts, looking at the power of Urban Arts disciplines (Rap, Street Dance, Graffitti and Singing) as political tools in expressing young peoples concerns about the world around them.
2006 - 2019 - House of Talent - See Below
2014 - 2022 - A Season of Bangla Drama - See Below.
2016 - 2022 - Bricklane Circle and Stepney Community Trust - See Below
2020 - Present - Medi Foundation (TRNC) - See Below
A Season of Bangla Drama Festival
2014 - 2022
For almost a decade Arts Without Borders (AWB) has successfully acted as Production Company for London Borough of Tower Hamlets' (LBTH) annual Season of Bangla Drama Festival. From Dramaturgy support, creative writing workshops and theatre directing to administrative support, AWB has provided quality arts and administration to many of the theatre groups, artists, and community members of this prestigious festival throughout the years.
(Photos by Rehan Jamil)
House of Talent - 'A' Team Arts
Dr Canan Salih, as Youth Arts Officer for and in collaboration with former 'A' Team Arts (LB Tower Hamlets youth arts provision for over 40 years before its closure in 2021) wrote and directed the below productions, with 'A' Team Arts youth drama group, House of Talent.
1001 Nights - A cross arts production of the famous 1001 Nights Tales from the East, included circus, animation, puppetry, film, dance and drama, with a cast of 63 young people in Tower Hamlets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LYrSutTCHg
Romeo and JC - Romeo and JC are two East London youths from opposing families that fight the odds and animosity between their clans to find true love.
Nemesis 1 - When superpowers enter a game of war, a game of chance, a game of destruction, it's the people that pay the price. A look at the impact of 9/11, the 7/7 London bombings and the rise of Islamaphobia in East London, through the eyes of its youth.
Miss Match - A feature length Bollywood film adaptation of Jane Austin's Emma,
based in Tower Hamlets, East London.
Rapture - Written and directed by Dr Canan Salih as a modern day interpretation of ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’, the strapline, ‘You see a hijab, I see a rapper’, says it all. The play features a young, female, Muslim protagonist and the relevant contemporary issues around radicalisation, identity, gender and familial expectation. Performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival of 2017
Nemesis 2 - Following on from Nemesis 1, this production explores current issues of radicalization and online grooming of young people in East London, the 'refugee crisis', following the confllcts in Syria and the Middle East, and the biased coverage of werstern media's take on terrorism.
Brick Lane Circle and Stepney Community Trust
AWB working on heritage projects with the Bangladeshi Community of East London, in collaboration with Bricklane Circle (https://bricklanecircle.org) and Stepney Community Trust (https://stepney.org.uk). Services include dramatizing research through writing, transcribing, directing film and theatre productions, research and presentations.
Arts Without Borders
International Connections
Artistic Director of AWB, Dr Canan Salih has been working as Chair of the Student Society of the Medi Foundation, in Northern Cyprus (https://medifoundation.com). Projects include Drama workshops with students from the various universities across Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on isolation, culture shock and xenophobia.
