Shababeek for Contemporary Art works to create a supportive environment for artists, enabling them and developing their capacities. It operates under the the General Union of Cultural Centers, a network of independent, non-profit civil society institutions established in 1997 by several long-standing cultural centers with extensive experience in cultural and developmental work.

The union was created as a coordinating framework to address the urgent and growing needs of cultural centers and institutions, to enable them to play a pioneering and effective role. Through its work, it seeks to provide a unique creative platform that empowers cultural practitioners and artists to shape and articulate a Palestinian cultural identity that contributes positively to processes of social and political change in Palestine.