Letter from the Director

by Abbas Mohamed

All praises due to the Almighty, in whose name I begin. Peace and blessings to you all on this day, and always.

With your support, GAMA has completed our second year of serving the community. Thank you for all of your support through attending our events and workshops, donating to our campaigns, and following us on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

During our first year we held several events and exhibitions, and began to learn more about our artists’ needs, the kinds of projects that worked well in our communities, and the gaps that exist in our community which could be addressed through the arts.

We implemented these discoveries during 2018 with workshops specifically designed for our artists, community events such as our gallery launch at L’Aziz Pizza + Eatery , and a specific focus on mental health in the Muslim community for close to half of our programs and projects. We exist as an organization to support and empower Muslim artists, and we made sure to keep that focus in our programs this year, as we plan to do in the coming years as well.

We also accomplished a number of memorable milestones this year, including an IC3 Art Residency at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California, an official partnership with Khalil Center, and a fiscal sponsorship by the New York Foundation for the Arts for our GAMA NY chapter. I also, personally, joined the Emerging Arts Professional fellowship in San Francisco which has helped connect GAMA to many other amazing arts nonprofits in the Bay Area.

Our collective has also experienced much growth this year. We have connected with more Muslim artists around the globe and are excited for possible collaborations to emerge from the new connections, especially with our cousins in the UK, the Khidr Collective! We are also in talks with artists in Detroit, to open a GAMA chapter that would serve the Detroit Muslim artist community.

Of course, none of this would be possible without your support. In 2017, together we raised over $10K, which helped fund our operations throughout this year. This year, we launched a more ambitious campaign, to raise $35K by the end of 2018, and we have been blown away by your support: over $17K already raised! Whether you have previously experienced a GAMA event, are keen to support Muslim artists, or are excited with the work we are doing, please consider contributing to our current campaign at https://www.launchgood.com/project/building_the_muslim_narrative#!/

We hope and pray for your continued support in the coming years. We are so grateful that you have believed in our vision with the same passion that we have, and are invested in keeping this work going. If you ever have feedback, ideas, or questions, I hope that you will not hesitate in reaching out to us through our social media, or my personal email address.

 

All the best,

Abbas Mohamed

Executive Director

abbas@thegamacollective.com