The Failaka Institute for Knowledge and Arts Research (FIKAR) is a site of knowledge-production and creation dedicated to artists, writers, film, theatre and music practitioners and academic researchers whose work contributes to the celebration, protection and recognition of the ancient island of Failaka.
FIKAR was established in 2015 to provide a working space for artists, writers, and researchers on the ancient island of Failaka.
A committee of friends, working alongside former Failakan residents came together to identify a suitable property to host the project. Located on Al Jazeera Street, at the far southern edge of the village of Al Zawr, opposite the Failaka Museum, the Hellenistic ruins and Bronze Age settlements, the house that became Dar FIKAR had laid abandoned since the Iraqi Invasion in 1990.
The island of Failaka
The depopulated island of Failaka lies in the Northern Arabian Gulf, just South of the confluence of the two great Mesopotamian rivers. Accumulating rich traces of civilisations since prehistoric times due to its natural resources, favourable climate and strategic position, the island has also borne witness to the war-torn infrastructures of the late twentieth century.
