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Partners

Associate Partners
Alliance of Civilizations Media Fund
The Alliance of Civilizations Media Fund (AoCMF) is a non-profit consortium of media industry leaders and philanthropists working in partnership with the United Nations to expand the production of commercial film, television, and new media content that challenges common stereotypes and exposes audiences to regions and cultures that are often absent from or negatively portrayed in mass media. Recognizing that rapid advances in media technology and accessibility have dramatically increased the entertainment media’s ability to influence how biases and stereotypes are formed and reinforced, the AoCMF was established in 2008 to promote media that is both commercially viable and supportive of an increasingly diverse and interdependent world.

AoCMF is collaborating with The European Union National Institutes for Culture and The New York Public Library to present the June 9 to 11 discussion series, ISLAM IN EUROPE; INSULT: Fractured States? to be held at the New York Public Library.

American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. Located in park-like grounds, the Museum comprises 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories, and its renowned library. The collections contain over 32 million specimens, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time. The Museum has a scientific staff of more than 200, and sponsors over 100 special field expeditions each year.

The American Museum of Natural History together with BAM will present the film Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta on Wednesday, June 10 at 7pm at the Museum's LeFrak Theater.

Austrian Cultural Forum
The Austrian Cultural Forum New York (ACFNY), an agency of the Republic of Austria, is located in an extraordinary architectural landmark building in Manhattan. It is a cultural, academic, and intellectual meeting place for Austrians, Americans, and citizens from all over the world. The ACFNY seeks to enhance the appreciation of contemporary Austrian creative achievements in the United States. It offers programs focusing on current artistic and intellectual challenges and controversies, and cooperates with cultural and academic institutions throughout the United States.

The Austrian Cultural Forum is presenting The Seen and the Hidden: (Dis)covering the Veil, a trans-cultural exhibition exploring the questions and tensions surrounding the Muslim practice of veiling through the eyes of contemporary artists from the Middle East, Europe, and New York. The exhibition will be on display May 21 to August 29.

Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is the second largest art museum in the United States, with a permanent collection of more than one million objects. One of the premier art institutions in the world, its holdings include objects ranging from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art and represent almost every culture. The Museum is housed in a 560,000-square-foot landmark Beaux-Arts building designed by McKim, Mead & White. It is located in central Brooklyn, a half-hour from midtown Manhattan.

The Brooklyn Museum presents Light of the Sufis: The Mystical Arts of Islam, an exhibition featuring precious objects by artists from the medieval Islamic period through the present day inspired by Sufism’s literal and figurative focus on light, underscored by the poetry of celebrated mystics such as Jalal al-Din Rumi. The exhibition will be on display from June 5 to September 6.

European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC)
EUNIC New York, is a network of New York’s European Union National Cultural Institutes, was founded in 2007, following the success of the 2006 European Dreams festival. Its mission is to improve and promote cultural diversity and understanding between European societies and to strengthen international dialogue and cultural cooperation with countries outside Europe. With Islam in Europe, EUNIC New York will participate in an important initiative that has immediate relevance in the United States as well as in Europe.

EUNIC is partnering with The New York Public Library to present the June 9-11 discussion series, ISLAM IN EUROPE; INSULT: Fractured States? to be held at the New York Public Library.

Museum for African Art
The Museum for African Art is one of the premier institutions in the United States devoted to exhibiting traditional and contemporary African art. On September 24, 2007, the Museum broke ground for a new permanent museum building designed by Robert A. M. Stern, Dean of the Yale University School of Architecture, on Manhattan’s Museum Mile at Fifth Avenue between 109th and 110th Street. The Museum’s administrative offices, educational facility, and gift shop are temporarily located in Long Island City. Exhibitions are currently presented at off-site locations in New York City and tour nationally and internationally.

The Museum for African Art is collaborating with the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts to present Perspectives: Women, Art & Islam, an exhibition that spans three continents and the mediums of video, photography, and installation to challenge preconceived notions of what it means to be a Muslim, a woman, and a visual artist whose work is influenced by Islam. The exhibition will be on display June 4 to September 13.

Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA)
MoCADA is devoted to utilizing the visual arts as a medium to address, discuss, debate and resolve contemporary social, political and economic issues that disproportionately affect the people of the African diaspora through the creation of innovative exhibitions, public programs, community outreach initiatives and educational interactive tours. The experiences and cultural contributions of people of African descent have been grossly marginalized throughout history. MoCADA’s mission is to undertake the responsibility of rewriting this history in order to give a more accurate portrayal of contributions to the historical, artistic and cultural landscape of the world by people of African descent.

MoCADA is collaborating with the Museum for African Art to present Perspectives: Women, Art & Islam, an exhibition that spans three continents and the mediums of video, photography, and installation to challenge preconceived notions of what it means to be a Muslim, a woman, and a visual artist whose work is influenced by Islam. The exhibition will be on display June 4 to September 13.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the great museums of the world. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, often referred to simply as "the Met," is one of the world's largest art galleries, consisting of its main building along four blocks of Fifth Avenue and its branch for medieval art, the Cloisters Museum and Gardens, in Upper Manhattan.

Represented in the encyclopedic collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American, modern and contemporary art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art as well as musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of notable interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through 20th century America, are permanently installed in the Met's galleries.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens, including businessmen and financiers, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. The museum now occupies over 2.4 million square feet.

From June 2 to September 1, The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents Masterpieces of Islamic Calligraphy from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a display of sumptuous masterpieces of calligraphy in a range of media spanning the 8th to the 19th century, from Spain to south Asia and beyond. The exhibit aims to demonstrate the impact and importance of this most quintessential of Islamic art forms.

The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. It comprises four research centers – the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Science, Industry and Business Library – and 87 branch libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second language. The New York Public Library serves over 16 million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 25 million users internationally, who access collections and services through its website, www.nypl.org.

LIVE from the NYPL is a series of lively and provocative conversations, debates, and performances at The New York Public Library curated by Paul Holdengräber, Director of Public Programs. Past participants have included Werner Herzog, Christopher Hitchens debating Al Sharpton, an opera based on The Elements of Style by Maira Kalman and Nico Muhly, Gunter Grass in conversation with Norman Mailer, Miranda July with David Byrne and Becky Stark, Aline and R. Crumb, Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain, Harold Bloom, Nicholas Kristof, and Orhan Pamuk.

From June 9 to 11, LIVE from the NYPL, in collaboration with the European Union National Institutes for Culture will present a series of debates, discussions, and conversations entitled ISLAM IN EUROPE; INSULT: Fractured States?The events will gather prominent, multidisciplinary speakers from around the world to explore how the power of insult ignites, engages, and launches both positive and negative action that shapes society.

Media Partners
The New York Times

WNET.org