Tag: LAAF

Sioned Jones smiling.

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival announce Sioned Jones as new Chief Executive Officer & Artistic Director

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) is delighted to welcome Sioned Jones as its new Chief Executive Officer and Artistic Director.

Sioned brings nearly 30 years’ experience working at a senior level in the not-for-profit sector that has included roles as CEO at The Circle, a women’s rights organisation founded by Annie Lennox, Director at the Tax Justice Network and Deputy Director at Oxfam GB.

She also has extensive experience as a Trustee and currently sits on the Board of 3 charities, Storyhouse, the award-winning arts centre and creative hub in Chester, where she chairs the Development Committee and sits on the Artistic Impact and Finance committees, Magic for Smiles, a charity that works in several Arab countries and the UK working to support refugee children by bringing joy through Magic shows and workshops and Child to Child, a pioneering organisation in children’s participation.

Speaking about her appointment Sioned said, “I am absolutely delighted and thrilled to be joining LAAF, the UK’s longest-running annual Arab arts and culture festival, whose mission, to educate, challenge and engage communities in Arab arts, culture and heritage across the UK and internationally is one I feel incredibly passionate about. It is a real honour to have the opportunity to work with the Board and team, our partners, artists, funders and communities to build upon LAAF’s reputation and credibility for showcasing the richness of Arab art and building communities.”

Chair of LAAF, Afrah Qassim, said: “The Board are thrilled to appoint Sioned as CEO and Artistic Director at LAAF. She comes with a wealth of experience in all aspects of working in partnership and leading organisations. Coupled with her passion and knowledge of the power of arts and storytelling to connect, share experiences, grow understanding and preserve and build new cultures we look forward to this next chapter in LAAF’s journey and warmly welcome Sioned to the organisation and Liverpool.”

LAAF as an organisation was formally founded in 1998 with the first festival taking place in 2002 and has run annually since as a celebratory event raising awareness and promoting an understanding and appreciation of Arab culture for both Arab and non-Arab audiences in Liverpool and beyond. LAAF is the UK’s longest-running annual festival of Arab arts and culture.

2027 marks twenty-five years since that first festival. In that time, the festival has grown in size, confidence, expectation and ambition and remains the only annual multi-art form festival of its kind in the UK. It has become widely valued, with strong public affection and a broad audience, and recognised for its work supporting and championing creatives from the Arab region and its diaspora and fostering cultural understanding and appreciation through arts.

(Photo: Al Blundell)

A crowd gathering to listen to a storyteller inside a marquee.

LAAF awarded three-year grant from Postcode Neighbourhood Trust

Thanks to funds raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) has been awarded a three-year grant from Postcode Neighbourhood Trust.

The funding will enable LAAF to grow its community and education arts programme over the next three years, making arts and culture more accessible and increasing engagement with communities that are underrepresented in the arts and cultural sector.

As one of many organisations supported by Postcode Neighbourhood Trust, LAAF will use the funding to deepen its work with local communities and continue creating opportunities for people to connect, express themselves and celebrate the richness and diversity of Arab arts and cultures across Liverpool City Region.

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival would like to thank players of People’s Postcode Lottery for raising these funds, and Postcode Neighbourhood Trust for awarding this grant. More details about the programme will be shared in the coming months, and LAAF looks forward to welcoming communities from across the city to get involved.

Postcode Lottery Logo

A crowd of people gathered in the Sefton Park Palm House for LAAF Family Day 2024.

LAAF awarded three-year grant from Postcode Neighbourhood Trust

Thanks to funds raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) has been awarded a three-year grant from Postcode Neighbourhood Trust.

The funding will enable LAAF to grow its community and education arts programme over the next three years, making arts and culture more accessible and increasing engagement with communities that are underrepresented in the arts and cultural sector.

As one of many organisations supported by Postcode Neighbourhood Trust, LAAF will use the funding to deepen its work with local communities and continue creating opportunities for people to connect, express themselves and celebrate the richness and diversity of Arab arts and cultures across Liverpool City Region.

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival would like to thank players of People’s Postcode Lottery for raising these funds, and Postcode Neighbourhood Trust for awarding this grant. More details about the programme will be shared in the coming months, and LAAF looks forward to welcoming communities from across the city to get involved.

Maharat – Call for Emerging Creative Professionals

Arts Canteen and Liverpool Arab Arts Festival are delighted to open applications  for the first edition of Maharat مهارات  (Arabic for Skills), our development programme for emerging creative professionals. 

The programme is designed to offer an introduction for people of Arab origin to working in the creative industries, including music, film, events, performing arts  and festivals. We will give five ambitious, curious, and emerging creative  professionals from Arab backgrounds, who are based in England, the opportunity  to develop their craft and professionalism. Participants will make vital new  professional connections through tailored mentorship and training. It will serve as  a key moment in helping kick-start their careers in the creative industries. 

The programme will take place in two parts: 

  • a series of 5 online seminars, panel discussions, and workshops that  brings some of the most influential industry experts that Arts Canteen and  Liverpool Arab Arts Festival invites based on the needs of the five  selected creative practitioners 
  • 2 mentorship sessions from other industry professionals, based on the  practitioners’ needs and areas of interest 

The programme will run over five months between August and December 2021  and take place online via Zoom for the group sessions.  

1-2-1 sessions will either take place online or in person, dependent on location of  the mentor and participant and current Covid-19 guidance. All the sessions will  be run by Arab creative professionals based in both the UK and overseas. 

To be considered for the scheme, applicants must be based in England and be of  Arab origin, with less than two years experience of working in the creative  industries.  

Successful applicants will receive an honorarium of £50 per session (£350 in total). 

In order to apply, please complete this application form before 19 July 2021. 

Maharat is kindly supported by Arts Council England and DCMS as part of the  Culture Recovery Fund. 

LAAF 2021: July and August programme now live

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF), the UK’s longest running festival of Arab arts and culture, returns in July 2021 for its 23rd edition. The multi-artform programme of live and online events is an artist-led response to the complexities of the climate emergency in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region today.

The first wave of festival events encompasses July and August, with events for September, October and November being released later in the year. LAAF’s launch programme features the world premiere of Eating The Copper Apple by poet lisa luxx; Grounds for Concern, a new installation by visual artist Jessica El Mal; Trauma Then, Trauma Now by Youcef Hadjazi at the Royal Standard; the premiere of Blue Spaces by music collective هيHeya; the return of the ARTISTS | IDEAS | NOW series of talks, as well as a new film programme running throughout the festival.

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World is a panel of leading female journalists featured in the book. LAAF has commissioned the first episode of a new podcast What Happened in Baghdad by Kamel Saeed, which presents a fascinating audio journey of discovery into the creatives that once called the Iraqi capital home.

Key projects later in the festival include an ambitious new LAAF commission, 22, which will bring together 22 Arab artists, activists and creatives from across the MENA region nations to create an artistic anthology in response to the climate emergency. Threads is a new multidisciplinary performance and digital work bringing together three Arab women artists – Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings, Alia Alzougbi and Rihab Azar – as they weave together stories of migration, disability and the passage of time.

The dire impact of the climate crisis is already being disproportionately felt in the MENA region, an area which has faced unprecedented climatic events in recent years. Scorching temperatures, rising sea levels and dwindling natural resources increasingly threaten a region already confronting the continuing realities of conflict and colonialism. From performance to visual art, LAAF 2021 will provide a platform to express the lived experiences of those often excluded from climate conversations, while addressing interconnected issues such as imperialism, climate justice and capitalism.

Jack Welsh, Festival Programme Manager, said: “Across four months, our programme will engage, inform and creatively reimagine our future direction with respect to the climate emergency. Artists and performers from across the Arab world will ask what the international community can learn from those who are already stepping up to respond to the crisis on their doorstep? How can we establish a collective approach to dealing with this enormous challenge?”

Founded in 1998, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival takes place each year in leading arts and cultural venues across Liverpool. This year’s programme will include a mix of physical and online events, continuing LAAF’s mission to celebrate the best in Arab arts and culture, while connecting physical audiences in Liverpool with digital audiences around the world.

In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 festival is for the first time expanding from its usual two-week period to a longer festival, spanning almost four months from July to November. Further events for autumn will be announced later this summer.

Event: The Art and Culture of Yemen

6PM (UK), Wednesday 26 May 2021 – via Facebook Live

Join the event

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture invite you to an evening of wide-ranging discussion and performance, celebrating Yemeni and diasporic Yemeni arts and cultural heritage.

We set the historical and political context of the conflict in order to better understand the living heritage of Yemen, the threats as well as prospects for the future. In Yemen itself, a new generation are defining the narrative, through the medium of art and culture, as well as providing much-needed opportunities to build livelihoods and create jobs. We highlight British-Yemeni artists who are weaving their own stories, through new mediums, raising awareness of the conflict and their experiences in the UK. We also hear from cultural institutes about international efforts to preserve Yemeni tangible and intangible heritage. Expect traditional music and a spoken word performance to end the evening!

This event is a precursor to an online festival that MKIAC is hosting on the 24th of July 2021 which will feature Yemeni performers and seeks to build public awareness of the situation in Yemen and raise funds for charity.

 

Save the date! LAAF returns this summer

The emergency is here.

Join us from 16 July – 14 November 2021 for the 23rd Liverpool Arab Arts Festival – an artist-led response to the complexities of the climate emergency in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region today.

The climate emergency is the greatest threat to our planet. Its dire impact is already being disproportionately felt in the MENA region, an area which has faced unprecedented climatic events in recent years. Scorching temperatures, rising sea levels and dwindling natural resources increasingly threaten a region already confronting the continuing realities of conflict and colonialism.

This year’s festival presents a multidisciplinary range of artist-led responses to the climate emergency. From performance to visual art, the festival provides a platform to express the lived experiences of those often excluded from climate conversations, while addressing interconnected issues such as imperialism, climate justice and capitalism.

Across four months, our programme will engage, inform, question, and creatively reimagine our future direction. It asks: what can we learn from those already stepping up to respond? How can we do more? How do we collectively deal with the challenges that communities are already experiencing?

In response to the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic, the festival will – for the first time – run until November 2021. It will continue LAAF’s mission to celebrate the best in Arab arts and culture, connecting physical audiences in Liverpool with audiences around the world online.

Further information on festival events and participating artists and performers will be released across our social media and website in the coming weeks!