This year marks 20 years since the first Liverpool Arab Arts Festival was held in the city. For two decades Liverpool Arab Arts Festival has provided a platform for Arab art and culture, celebrating Arab artists across a range of artforms including music, performance, theatre, literature, spoken word, visual art and more.
The festival theme for 2022 is نقطة وصل – Nuqtat Wasl – A Point of Connection.
Some of this year’s events include:
Yemen In Conflict Exhibition
Across Liverpool
Original poems written by diasporic Yemeni communities in the UK, and presented in both English and Arabic, will be exhibited across venues in Liverpool during the festival for Yemen in Conflict.
Listings
Yemen in Conflict exhibition
Multiple Venues (see below)
Thursday 7 July – Sunday 17 July Visual art / poetry
Free
Exhibition of original poetry by the Yemeni diaspora communities in the UK across various venues in Liverpool:
- Merseyside Yemeni Community Association, 111 Beaumont St, Liverpool L8 0XA. See online for opening times.
- Toxteth Library, Windsor St, Liverpool L8 1XF. Opening times: 10am – 6pm Monday and Tuesday. 10am-4pm Saturday
- University of Liverpool, School of Law & Social Justice, Liverpool L69 7ZR – Window display
- News from Nowhere, 96 Bold St, Liverpool L1 4HY – Window display
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Film Screening: The Stories We Tell
VideOdyssey, 37-45 Windsor St, Toxteth, Liverpool L8 1XE
Sunday 10 July, 4-6:30pm
£5 / Pay What You Can
Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and SAFAR invite you on a tour of contemporary Arab cinema through a diverse selection of short films which explore the 2022 SAFAR festival theme, ‘The Stories We Tell’.
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A.MAL Presents: Working with Family Archives from North Africa
Monday 11 July, 5-7pm
Free Online Talk
Moderated by Jessica El Mal, A.MAL presents a discussion into this topic from the perspective of food historian Salma Serry of Sufra Kitchen, artist Imane Zoubai and media scholar Elodie Sacher.
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Film Screening: The Grave Digger’s Wife
VideOdyssey, 37-45 Windsor St, Toxteth, Liverpool L8 1XE
Tuesday 12 July, 6-8pm
£5 / Pay What You Can
Guled and Nasra are a loving couple, living in the outskirts of Djibouti city with their teenage son, Mahad. They are facing difficult times: Nasra urgently needs an expensive surgery to treat a chronic kidney disease. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet: how can they find the money to save Nasra and keep the family together? Part of SAFAR Film Festival.
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Arabic Song Workshop with Camille Maalawy
Merseyside Yemeni Community Association, 111 Beaumont St, Liverpool L8 0XA
Thursday 14 July, 6-9pm
£4
Join Mezzo Soprano Camille Maalawy for a choir performance workshop in the heart of Toxteth, the centre of Liverpool’s Arabic community at Merseyside Yemeni Community Association.
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London Syrian Ensemble
Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room, Philharmonic Hall, Hope St, Liverpool L1 9BP
Friday 15 July, 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm
£13 / £10
A stunning collective of eight musicians and graduates from Syria’s renowned Damascus Conservatoire.
Book The London Syrian Ensemble tickets here.
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Working with Family Archives, An Encounter (Online Workshop)
Saturday 16 July, 11am – 1pm
£3 / Pay What You Feel
Jessica El Mal and Elodie Sacher of A.MAL will guide you through a digital space for a fruitful, collaborative exchange about approaches to working with family archives.
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Book Launch & Event: A Journey to Yemen
Merseyside Yemeni Community Association, 111 Beaumont St, Liverpool L8 0XA
Saturday 16 July, 1-4pm Book launch and event
Free
Join for the launch This free celebratory event at Merseyside Yemeni Community Association will launch Yemen in Conflict, a new publication of poetry from diasporic Yemeni communities in the UK, written in both English and Arabic. It will also feature screenings, talks and food.
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Curfew
Unity Theatre, 1 Hope Pl, Liverpool, L1 9BG
Saturday 16 July, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm Dance performance
£10 / £8 concs
Hawiyya Dance Company and El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe present Curfew, a contemporary dance production. Curfew speaks to a world that is numbed and no longer able to respond to the constant bombardment of news, surveillance and manipulation.
Book Curfew tickets here.
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Family Day
Sefton Park Palm House
Sunday 17 July, 12:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Free
The return of our closing spectacular at the Palm House featuring British-Somali musician Aar Manta; the return of the trailblazing duo from the Golan heights, TootArd; Hawiyya Dance Company and El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe; Gazelleband; Ali Al-Jamri’s al-Usra wal-Sufra project; children’s storyteller Elias Matar and more.
A free, all day celebration of Arab art, culture and community in the heart of Liverpool the Family Day brings music and performance to the Palm House, along with a series of stalls including Arabic and Middle Eastern food, craft, traditional practices like calligraphy and activities focused on children, like storytelling.
Check out more of the events that have been announced so far at https://www.arabartsfestival.com/2022festival/