The Nour Festival of Arts will deliver dazzling contemporary artistic talent from the Middle East and North Africa to London audiences during October- November 2012. For the first time the festival is to expand beyond Leighton House Museum to include a stellar cast of participating cultural organisations.

New festival partners include the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Science Museum, the Ismaili Centre, the Mosaic Rooms, Al-Manaar: the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre and The Tabernacle.

The festival also works in collaboration with a host of London and UK partners, including the Arab British Centre, the British Egyptian Society, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, the London MENA Film Festival, London Iranian Film Festival and Arab New Trends Ltd.

The Nour Festival of Arts aims to:

 - reflect and celebrate the arts and culture of contemporary Middle Eastern and North African regions

- promote film, literature, music, visual arts, fashion, dance, cuisine

- demonstrate artistic excellence and work that is thought-provoking and challenging

The Nour Festival is coordinated by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and reflects the Council’s commitment to bring the very best international contemporary arts and culture to the borough. Nour – which means ‘light’ or ‘illumination’ in various Middle Eastern languages – sets out to explore contemporary culture from across the region and North Africa. The festival was inaugurated at Leighton House Museum in 2010, a building that is recognised as being an international symbol of east meeting west.

Cllr. Nicholas Paget-Brown, Deputy Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, said:

"In just two years the borough’s Nour Festival has grown into one of the most important festivals exploring Middle Eastern arts and culture in the UK. Not only is it part of our commitment to bringing international cultural excellence to the borough, but it also fosters closer ties and understanding with this part of the world and our Arabic speaking communities in the area.

 "The involvement of the V&A, Science Museum and other leading venues is a testament to the quality of success of the Festival to date. With their involvement we can reach new audiences and explore new avenues into the region, its cultures and art forms."

2012 Nour Festival identity, customised by Muiz

My creation of the identity for the Nour Festival 2012 reflects both the glorious diversity and unity of our past as Arabs and Muslims, [including our historic contribution and legacy of science and the arts to the world] and the traumatic, colonial carvery of our regional family into distant, troublesome neighbours.

 Our artistic heritage is one of our crowning achievements and has the capacity to piece these fragments back together.