About the Arts Programme

In 2012, Afrika Eye expanded to include arts and music workshops over the festival weekend, to give context and breadth to the overall film programme. Visual arts, music and aural history traditions are integral to life in countries throughout Africa. They are rarely found in isolation but connect in significant ways with the everyday lives of people and are of course reflected in many different guises in our film screenings.

With the support of Arts Council England our programme has grown and developed over the last five years. We have invited international musicians, dancers, singers, visual artists and performing arts practitioners of African and diasporic origin to join us in creating programmes which highlight the richness and diversity of African society and the important role the arts have to play within it.

We take the arts of Africa into schools, community venues, into the streets and on to the water, sharing and celebrating both traditional and contemporary practice. Artists contributing to this programme have come from countries as far apart as Zanzibar, Ghana, South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Jamaica, Haiti and Egypt and we have enjoyed a number of memorable musical collaborations.

We continue to seek out artists both in the UK and internationally to contribute to Afrika Eye Arts – please get in touch (link) if you would like to be added to our database of artists or are interested in future programmes.