The project “Arabic Arts Alive” continue in 2026 through various creative initiatives throughout the year.
Updates about events and on ways to be involved will be published in this page.

“Madinati: Every Story Shapes Our City”: An Interactive Visual Art Exhibition (February – June 2026)

The Arabic Language and Culture Association of South Australia (ALCASA) hosted the exhibition “Madinati: Every Story Shapes Our City” from 17 April to 13 May 2026 at the Minor Works Building Community Centre.

Madinati (My City), is a visual art exhibition about Adelaide and the many cities we carry inside us as migrants from our past life experience. Each migrant brings their own memories and images into the city they now call home. Madinati (My City) shows how a city can be built not only from buildings, but also from imagination, memory and personal experience.

The project “Madinati: Every Story Shapes Our City” was designed a a community gathering inititiative to enhance mutual understanding and encourage building cultural bridges within the SA diverse community. From its inception, the exhibition’s concept was discussed by a project team to define its vision and the related community gathering events. The ALCASA team followed up closely with the artists, Ahmed Elkhalidi and Rua hashlamoun, to produce the three initial exhibition artworks – a video sharing the artists’ personal belonging experience and two large canvases “Cities” and “My City”. Madinati exhibition was designed to be expanded in 2026 through Visual Arts workshops open to community members.

Madinati exhbition received a very encouraging response from the community. This has been well captured in the following short video clips:

• Madinati Launch event
• Madinati Interactive Workshops

Ahmed ElKhalidi is a visual artist based in Adelaide. Before settling here, he lived in the Middle East and other countries and went through experiences that deeply shaped his perspective. Ahmed’s work—across painting, mixed media and digital collage—explores memory, place, identity and the sense of belonging that comes with living far from home.

Rua Hashlamoun, is a principal architect at Brown Falconer and has lived in Adelaide for over ten years. Her practice focuses on how people experience cities and how identity is shaped through public space.

Proudly supported by City of Adelaide Community Impact Grants

Madinati (My City)
Visual Art Interactive Workshop 1

Community Singing and Dabke Groups 2026

Empowered by their resounding success in 2025, members in the the ALCASA Community Singing and Dabke groups are deterimned to continue strengthening their singing and dancing skills. We continue to receive support for the City of Adelaide while using on a fortinightly basis at the gorgeous Minor Works Community Centre and by being shortlisted to participate in Make Music Day 2026  on Saturday 20 June 2026.

Make Music Day 2026: Hafle (Celebration)

20 June 2026

The project “Arabic Arts Alive: Strengthening Community Connections Through Film, Music, and Dance” was implemented in 2025 by the Arabic Language and Culture Association of South Australia (ALCASA), in conjunction with the History Trust of SA’s Migration Museum. This is the third successful collaboration between ALCASA, the History Trust of SA’s Migration Museum, following the success of “Objects Tell Our Stories” (2021) and “Ahlan wa Sahlan – a celebration of Arabic Hospitality” (2022-2023).

Supported by the generosity of the City of Adelaide Arts and Cultural Grants, Arabic Arts Alive 2025 is an ambitious project to highlight the significance of Arabic music and dance in South Australia and establish the foundations for an Arabic community singing and dancing troupe. The project was launched with the SA community during the 2025 SA History Festival event with a special screening of the powerful movie Arze – a movie about struggle and survival in challenging times for the people of Lebanon and surrounding countries. An online Expression of Interest (EOI) to participate in the project was opened from mid-April to July 2025, and led to hosting two storytelling workshops in May and July 2025. With the help of the experienced HTSA staff, we collected stories about personal experience in Arabic music and dance and produced an online exhibition published in the  HTSA Stories section as Our Stories: Arabic Art Alive (https://arabicartsalive.history.sa.gov.au).

Another positive outcome of the project was offering Arabic singing and dabke dancing workshops where interested community members received guidance and instruction enabling them to perform together on stage for the first time in a “Hafle”, a celebration event to mark the completion of the project.

The ALCASA Hafle event was a lively and heartwarming afternoon, alive with music, dance, and delicious food, and offered a precious opportunity to explore a pop-up exhibition showcasing the stories shared in storytelling workshops. (Follow the links to check the Hafle video and the Hafle photos )

Community Dabke Dancing
5 Sessions from
July to September 2025