Question:
WHY does Silk Road Rising exist?
Answer:
Because we need to EXPAND THE AMERICAN STORY.
Silk Road Rising is a Chicago-based, community-centered, artmaking and arts service organization rooted in Pan-Asian*, North African, and Muslim experiences. Through storytelling, digital media, and arts education, we cultivate new narratives, challenge disinformation, and promote a culture of continuous learning.

*We define Pan-Asian as inclusive of all cultures that span the Asian continent, including their diaspora communities.
Silk Road Cultural Center is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary arts organization rooted in the modern communities of the historic Silk Roads, including our diaspora communities. We embrace the arts as a catalyst for connecting people, places, histories, and futures.

Cultivating New Narratives

Creating

We celebrate the artistic legacies of our diverse communities, and amplify stories that are by us, about us, and for all.

Challenging Divisions

Advocating

We craft stories to challenge the polarization that tears at the fabric of American society.

Promoting a Culture of Continuous Learning

Educating

We use stories to share ideas, imagine new possibilities, and explore what it means to be American in the 21st century.

Podcast Series

EVOLVE
Polycultural Institute, the Think-and-Create Tank of Chicago’s Silk Road Cultural Center, is proud to launch its first-ever podcast series, Evolve. Hosted by Polycultural Institute’s Founder and Director, Jamil Khoury, Evolve is a mix of spoken essays and conversations with interesting and exciting thinkers, changemakers, innovators, and disruptors.

Building upon our ethics of artmaking and curation, Evolve poses open-ended questions and avoids soliciting closed-ended answers. It is polycultural, not ideological. Opinionated, not heavy-handed. We strive to get it right, but sometimes get it wrong, and are always happy to correct ourselves.
 

Collection 1*: Rebuilding Syria*

Rebuilding Syria focuses on the dramatic changes happening in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime. It begins with a series of reflections that draw upon Khoury’s Syrian American heritage, background in Middle East Studies, decades of cultural and political activism, and experiences of both Syria and the Syrian diaspora.  Khoury offers a candid and subjective analysis of a country on the precipice of profound recovery and renewal or continued conflict and despair. Further down the line, he hopes to interview scholars, artists, and activists with ties to Syria.

In that vein, Rebuilding Syria is guided by insight and hope, cautious optimism, and win-win pragmatism. It is, in many respects, a love letter to Syria and the Syrian people, but doesn’t omit painful truths and sobering assessments. It is intended to support visions of a new Syria that are just, pluralistic, and free.
 
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Silk Road Cultural Center is a dba of Gilloury Institute, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization
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