Ziya is a multicultural art center based in Berkeley, California. Ziya’s mission is to promote the study, understanding, and preservation of the arts of different cultures from SAMENA (South Asia, Middle East, North Africa) region and their diasporas in United States.

Ziya believes in a cultural similarity in various cultures that exist in countries from Malaysia to North Africa that connects them to each other in spite of their differences. SAMENA region is not an official listing of countries by any organization but rather coined for the first time from Ziya to show the resemblance of art and culture between the people living from North Africa to South Asia.

Ziya intends to provide a forum for the scholars and artists to inform the audience of the values, beauties, and philosophy of the arts from SAMENA region. To this end, Ziya holds different workshops and classes, exhibitions,

performances, and collaborative art projects. Ziya has noticed a thirst in the Bay Area and in United States at large for this art, and would like to address it through different artistically and scholarly means.

Ziya is embracing the visual arts, crafts, architecture, literature, music, performance, media, and other forms of creative expression from both traditional and contemporary artists that is created by the direct or indirect influence of cultures from MESA region world-wide.

Some of the examples of Ziya’s activities are Arabopersian calligraphy classes and exhibitions, traditional Turkish music with Mevlevi performance in partnership with Mevlevi Order of America, screening Michel Wolfe’s award winning film called “Islamic Art: The Mirror to Invisible World” in partnership with Zawaya, and book reading sessions in partnership with ICCNC.