Story & Vision
The Crossway Foundation is a London-based charitable foundation promoting creative collaboration and better understanding between young people in the UK and the Middle East.
It is an historic initiative and the vision of a number of individuals and organisations working in the field of arts, intercultural education and community cohesion.
It all began in 2002 when a group of four young British artists – Al Braithewaite, Henry Hemming, Stephen Stapleton and Georgie Weedon –set off from East London and travelled round the Middle East on an adventurous journey of communication with young artists.
The journey took them through Turkey, Iran, Kurdish Iraq, UAE, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt and finally to Baghdad soon after the city fell in 2003. It was a tense period, with the shadow of 9-11 on one side, and the Iraq war looming on the other. What they saw was a social reality not being conveyed on screen where the message was polarizing and dominated by extremist views on either side.
As well as producing exhibitions of expedition artwork in London, Amman, Muscat, New York, Amsterdam, Oslo and Tehran, and a written account of their journey, in 2004 a visual record of the expedition was published to critical acclaim: Offscreen, Four Young Artists in the Middle East (distributed worldwide by Booth-Clibborn Editions).
Following its publication, the artists joined forces with Adam Williamson, artist in residence at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts and Raheel Mohammed, Director of Maslaha, to set up Offscreen, a multi-award-winning education focused social enterprise to broaden understanding of the Middle East in the UK. The initiative’s aim was to inspire students to explore other cultures and cross borders in a creative and positive way.
In 2008, Offscreen produced the first ever exhibition of Saudi contemporary art in London, called Edge of Arabia. From this initial exhibition, the arts initiative under the same name was formed and continues to this day. Edge of Arabia continues to this day to promote contemporary art from the Arab world with touring non-commercial and free exhibitions through publications and through education programmes targeting schools and universities.
Impressed by these activities, The Prince’s Regeneration Trust offered to support Offscreen and Edge of Arabia’s efforts to consolidate their charitable educational activities into one organisation, The Crossway Foundation. The time has now come for us to bring this energy back to London, to create London’s first UK/Middle East creative education centre. The Crossway Foundation’s vision remains to inspire creativity and communication across borders.