Somali Week Festival - 23.10.15-01.11.15

Somali Week Festival 2015 launch Event

Kayd Somali Arts and Culture, in collaboration with Redsea Cultural Foundation and other partners, are proud to present Somali Week Festival 2015. This year’s festival will run from Friday, 23rd to Sunday, 1st November at Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, London, E2 6HG and various other venues

Somali Week Festival is an integral part of Black History Month and offers the best of Somali arts and culture, both old and new. The festival offers a mix of events including poetry, literature, panel discussions, documentary film screenings, music and theatre.

Through these different artistic forms, Somali Week Festival has explored a variety of themes in past years and has become a widely recognized and anticipated annual event in the UK

Theme of the Year: Space

This year’s festival is centred around the theme of ‘space’. It’s about experimenting with innovative and emerging spaces for Somali arts. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the spaces we have inhabited and carved out for the arts over the years, and the spaces that are being eroded or are currently under threat, while looking forward to developing, expanding and enriching new spaces.

Festival participants will be invited to explore what it means to inhabit, create, move between and beyond different artistic spaces, be they physical or psychological, public or private.

This festival is an opportunity for artists to continue to explore alternative creative outlets for their work while also looking at ways of reviving traditional spaces that are vastly disappearing. Furthermore, the festival will be a space to investigate creative forms of collaboration amongst artists of different ages and levels of experience; it will provide a platform to share practices and to discuss, interact, and work together. This year, we are delighted to welcome international guests; Mohamed BK, Sahra Aleys, Anab Guleid, Mataano, Ladan Osman, Mustafa Sheekh Elmi,  Mohamed Adow, Ugaaso Boocow, Prof Awo Abdi, Dayrwaa, Abdidhuh Yusuf, Abdirahman Guri ‘Barwaaqo, Abdiqaadir Shube, Da'ud Ali Mashaf, Dr Rasheed Farrah’s, Sofia Aidid, Dr Siham Rayale, Jonny Steinberg, Rashiid Maxamed Shabeelle, Farah Gaamuute

These guests will be sharing a platform and collaborating with our UK, artists and other guests.