Shams Club is the Cultural Platform Uniting MENA Creatives Globally

Lena Khouri and Yasmine Rasool have dedicated much of their work to creating platforms that celebrate and connect creatives from the MENA region. Rasool, along with her brother, is the founder of WAASTAA, a platform and collective showcasing Middle Eastern artists, while Khouri is behind ‘Between East’, an LA-based media company dedicated to showcasing stories from the region.

Both deeply enmeshed in the MENA and Arab diaspora creative communities, with a passion for promoting them, Khouri and Rasool noticed the same problem: although the region and the Arab diaspora were buzzing with creative energy, they were fragmented into isolated communities with limited opportunities for interaction.

“We saw that despite the depth of creativity, there were all these fragmented communities unaware of each other’s existence, desperate for a space to connect and collaborate with like-minded creatives. So, we began to think about how we could bring this all into one united community crossing borders,” Khouri and Rasool tell CairoScene.

For Khouri, who is of Jordanian and Palestinian descent but born and raised in LA, there was an additional dimension. “When I began working in the media world in LA, there was no one who looked like me or shared my culture. It wasn’t until I started ‘Between East’ in LA that I realized the power of what could happen if you brought MENA creatives together, and wanted to replicate that experience on a global scale.”

The solution they came to was Shams Club. Described by Khouri and Rasool as “an online Soho House for MENA creatives of every stripe - filmmakers, artists, designers, and marketing executives could meet and connect” - the vision was for a platform to unite creatives working in the Middle East with the Arab diaspora in the West.

"The Arab diaspora in the West has access to resources, and countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are creating more opportunities for diaspora creatives. By connecting the diaspora with creatives from the region, we can showcase the modern Arab experience and build a new cultural ecosystem where diverse Arab voices are at the fore."

Fresh from Shams Club’s London launch, both Rasool and Khouri were excited about the response from creatives. “We are still buzzing about London. It was so beautiful - everyone was sort of holding hands, saying, ‘This is what we needed - being in a room with people who know exactly how we want to be spoken to.’”

A key component of the club will be a series of workshops, webinars and hosted discussions where members can engage with some of the MENA region’s leading creatives, such as Hend Baghdady, the executive producer of Netflix’s ‘The Perfect Couple’ starring Nicole Kidman, and Mai Salama, co-founder of the Creative Industry Summit, the region’s premier forum for the creative economy.

Following Shams Club’s launches in London, Dubai and Amman, the duo hopes that, as the club grows, it will build and develop organically. “What we ultimately want is for the community to take on a life of its own to create new opportunities for MENA creatives and forge surprising new connections.”