What’s on at Somali Week Festival 2026
The annual event is back with a packed programme of discussions, workshops and showcases
Somali Week Festival, the largest event celebrating the nation’s art and culture outside of the Horn of Africa, is back for another year.
Running from 16 to 25 October in a range of London venues, the festival theme for 2026 is Making Home: Art in Motion. A packed programme aims to explore how members of the Somali diaspora use creativity to connect to their heritage and create new homes.
The festival opens at the British Library with a panel discussion featuring Ifrah F Ahmed, a Brooklyn-based chef and author of cookbook Soomaaliya, and playwright and actor Sabrina Ali. Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, a Somali-Italian writer, Hussein Suleiman, co-founder of streetwear brand Daily Paper and Canadian film-maker Ilhan Abdullahi will also talk about their creative interpretations of home.
Kayd Somali Arts and Culture, founded by Ayan Mahamoud, has organised the festival since its launch in 2008.
“This year is about bringing Somali creatives together, whether they’re in fashion, sports, activism or academia,” says Mahamoud, who was awarded an MBE in 2015 for services to the promotion of cultural understanding. “We want to open up institutions like the British Library and the Southbank Centre that normally would not open up for Somali creatives.”
This year’s events include an exclusive preview of Arraweelo, an operatic performance by Rebecca Örtman and Jonas Dominique, at Oxford House in east London. The piece is inspired by the folk tale of a Somali queen who believes society should operate as a matriarchy and blends Somali musical and literary traditions with western classical forms.
Designer Jihan Hersi will also host a sustainable Somali fashion workshop. “I wanted to show people that we can make prints inspired by a garbasaar (shawl), which can take years to weave the intricate patterns on, with just a heat press, plant-based dyes and upcycled fabric,” says Hersi, who hopes her event will encourage the diaspora to learn Somali textile traditions for themselves.
Each year a film by a Somali director is featured. The 2026 screening will be of director Ilhan Abdullahi’s Lifeline at Kiln Theatre in north-west London. The story recalls the Vancouver-based film-maker’s experiences as a youth worker, following Hasan (Hanad Abdi), a gifted basketball player accused of a crime and Ibtisam Farah (Muna Abdulahi), a youth worker who is assigned to his case. The soundtrack features original music by Somali rapper Sharma Boy.
A new edition to this year’s lineup is a workshop on neurodiversity and the creative process, hosted by writer, musician and educator Samatar Elmi. “Somalis are massively over-represented amongst the communities in this country that are neurodivergent and go undiagnosed,” he says. “As a community we have a stigma around being labelled as different.”
During the launch event, the inaugural Trailblazer Award honouring British Somali creatives will be presented to Ali, following her acclaimed play Dugsi Dayz, which was adapted into a BBC comedy short, Proper Ladies, released earlier in 2026.
Author Nuruddin Farah’s 80th birthday will also be celebrated. His debut novel From a Crooked Rib, which was published when he was 25, is widely considered a literary masterpiece. Once described as a man who has “lived in 13 countries but who can only think about one”, Farah has spent many years writing about a place he cannot return to and the homes he has made for himself elsewhere.
