Founded in 1998, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) is the UK’s longest-running annual Arab arts and culture festival, platforming the best UK and international Arab artists. The festival creates a dynamic between traditional and contemporary Arab artforms, encouraging informed debate that explores, and increases, appreciation of Arab people and their rich cultures.
Beyond its flagship summer event, LAAF runs a diverse year-round programme of events and participatory projects that bring together artists and communities, fostering deeper understanding and appreciation of Arab culture in Liverpool and beyond.
The showcase celebration of their year-round programme, the festival takes place over ten days, welcoming Arab artists to Liverpool and taking place at venues across the city.
Their programme is wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary. It includes visual art, performance, music, film, literature, spoken word and more.
Festival Highlights for 2025
The Alexandrian, Yamama Cafe and Bar (11 – 20 July)
In this free exhibition, The Alexandrian, Mohamed Gohar utilises his artistic visual language alongside architectural and heritage experiences.
Gohar explores how today’s Alexandrian society influences the city’s evolving urban landscape, using his unique blend of visual art, architecture, and heritage. The aim is to observe and analyse the communal behaviours of the city users, focusing on developing an objective understanding of the changing values and cultures.
The exhibition runs throughout the festival’s duration. You can also join them for an informal artist talk on 16 July, at 4pm.
Penguin, Unity Theatre (11 July)
Full of humour and beauty, Penguin describes protagonist Hamzeh’s extraordinary return to his village in Syria, Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, Gateshead and inside his mind: a place full of music, dancing, fantasies and marbles.
Hamzeh invites you to be his childhood friends, to hold the moon to light the way into his dreams, brushing the dust from his clothes and taking to the stage. Suitable for ages 12+, the show includes stories about being displaced due to war, refugee camps and ableism.
Penguin has integrated creative captions in Arabic and English.
Hadi Badi Children’s Workshop, Bluecoat (13 July)
A joyful bilingual workshop for young book lovers aged 4–8, exploring memory, home, and family through Arabic children’s literature.
LAAF are delighted to welcome Hadi Badi co-founders, Hend Badawy and Raneem Soliman, back to the festival to lead a Hadi Badi interactive storytelling workshop for children aged 4–8 years. The session will introduce participants to high-quality Arabic children’s books that explore themes of nostalgia and memory, whether about home, family, places, or special moments.
Following the storytelling, children will enjoy a fun, creative activity linked to the story, designed to engage and inspire. The workshop will be conducted bilingually in Arabic and English.
Archiving Nostalgia, FACT (14 July)
Contemporary Arab films from Lebanon, Tunisia, and Algeria, reflecting on Archiving Nostalgia as both a thematic and aesthetic tool, all creating powerful archives of personal and collective memory. The screening will be followed by an in-person panel discussion on Arab cinema archiving.
Palestine Minus One, Bluecoat (16 July)
Join acclaimed Palestinian writers Mazen Maarouf, Anwar Hamed, and Basma Ghalayini for an evening of storytelling and conversation to launch Palestine Minus One, a bold new anthology from Comma Press.
As a prequel to Comma’s award-winning Palestine + 100 science fiction project, this anthology asks ten Palestinian authors to re-imagine the build-up to the catastrophe of 1948 and Israel’s 77-year-long occupation of Palestine: the Nakba of 1948. Blending the fantastical, the supernatural, and the speculative, these stories explore both the immediate and long-term repercussions of that defining moment in Palestinian history.
A Grain of Sand حبة رمل, Unity Theatre (18 July)
A Grain of Sand is a one-woman show that takes an intimate look at war through the eyes of a child, blending Palestinian folklore with real-life testimonies from children in contemporary Gaza. Renad’s story is one of resilience, hope and the right of children to be children.
Adapted from A Million Kites: Testimonies and Poems from the Children of Gaza by Leila Boukarim and Asaf Luzon. Renad, a young Gazan girl, embarks on a dangerous journey. Carrying only the echoes of her grandmother’s tales and the spark of her own imagination, she searches for her family and the ‘Anqaa’ – the mythical Palestinian Phoenix.
Akram Abdulfattah, Philharmonic Music Room (19 July)
Virtuosic Palestinian-American violinist Akram Abdulfattah returns to the UK with his genre-defying fusion of jazz, Middle Eastern and Indian music. In 2023, his multinational group visited the UK for the first time, performing a debut London show, and appearing at Knockengorroch and Cambridge Folk festivals. Akram’s talent has received international recognition, winning prestigious awards and engaging in various international and cross-culture projects.
LAAF Family Day 2025, Sefton Park Palm House (20 July)
The LAAF Family Day celebration is an unmissable highlight in Liverpool’s cultural calendar. A joyful grand finale to the festival, LAAF Family Day transforms the Palm House into a vibrant celebration of Arab culture, music, food, and community.
Featuring music and performance by leading musicians, their Family Day also brings an array of creative workshops, mouth-watering cuisine and exciting children’s activities. There will be over 20 stalls featuring authentic crafts, traders and much more!
Discover the full Liverpool Arab Arts Festival 2025 programme and plan your festival experience at liverpoolarabartsfestival.com.