Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF), the longest running annual festival of Arab arts and culture in the UK, returns for its 23rd year this July.
Founded in 1998, LAAF exists to support and champion creatives from across the Arab region and its diaspora, in the belief that art and creativity have the power to express a shared humanity.
The festival also celebrates Liverpool’s unique identity; a city, with a global community and brimming with artistry, that looks outwards across the world and welcomes and accepts all who arrive within it.
This year’s festival theme is Nostalgia, which will be explored through a diverse range of disciplines, including music, theatre and performance, visual art, literature and film – with the programme culminating at the ever-popular LAAF Family Day.
Photo: Andrew AB Photography
Nostalgia evokes a longing for the past, both in individual and collective experiences. Whether rooted in childhood memories or recent defining moments, it often has an idealised or romanticised connotation.
Within the Arab world and its diaspora communities, you will find that nostalgia transcends mere sentimentality. Indeed, it translates the need to reclaim and preserve cultural identities, acting as a parallel resistance to the internal changes and surrounding shifts that shape them. Increasingly, MENA artists use the culture of nostalgia to bridge between nations and generations, while unlocking connections of the past and present. Whether by revising treasured memories or revisiting historical narratives, it has become a powerful means for honouring, revival and continuity.
This is the journey LAAF would like to invite audiences on at this year’s festival. From one-person performances and family events to film screenings, a golden music era homage, authentic embroidery and cultural cuisine workshops, talks and literature events; the notion of nostalgia is woven throughout this year’s festival programme, it will undoubtedly resonate with the challenging context we witness today.
At a time when war and violence fill screens on a daily basis, LAAF believes passionately in the ability – and in the freedom – of artists who are documenting and narrating change.
The first two events announced for LAAF 2025:
Akram Abdulfattah
On Saturday 19th July, LAAF welcomes the young Palestinian-American violin master, Akram Abdulfattah, to the Philharmonic Music Room. Abdulfattah combines jazz with middle eastern and Indian music, with a style that creates a world of fusion music. Rooted in Middle Eastern traditions whilst influenced by Hindu, Turkish, and Persian styles, Abdulfattah reflects the rich legacy and culture of oriental sounds in a modernised fashion.
Tickets are on sale now via the venue’s website.
