The Art Fund donated £150,000 to establish a major collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Part of the collection now includes photographs created in reaction to the Arab Spring of 2011.

Stephen Deuchar, Director of Art Fund, said “It is a response to the surge in interest in visual arts in that part of the world, a surge that has not been matched by its representation in museums generally.”

According to The Guardian, each of the institution is collecting for different reasons – one is to tell the story of societies and the other is to highlight the particular medium.

Most of the works from the new collection will be part of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum called Light from the Middle East: New Photography. The show will feature artists such as Abbas, Youssef Nabil and Walid Raad alongside emerging talents such as Taysir Batniji, Shadi Ghadirian and Abdulnasser Gharem.  Light from the Middle East: New Photography is scheduled to run from November 13, 2012 until April 7, 2013 and will tour UK after its inaugural show in London.

To see works from this collection, please visit: www.artfund.org.