Call for Artists for Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (UK / Online)

Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) is inviting artistic proposals for their 2022 festival. The festival will be held in July 2022, marking twenty years since the first Liverpool Arab Arts Festival was held in the city.

Whether in Liverpool or online, LAAF works with Arab artists who are living and/or working in the UK, in an Arab country or within its communities, or identify as having Arab heritage.

As a festival, they work with artists across a range of artforms, including: music, performance, theatre, literature, spoken word, visual art and more. Proposals can be in any of these artforms. Outputs can include live or digital performances, events, artworks, exhibitions, workshops, public realm works, talks, panel discussions or young people’s activities.

The call is open both to commissions of new work and presentations of existing pieces. LAAF can support travel fees, but the budget is limited – so a large group of artists with international travel would not be appropriate.

Festival Theme

Next year our theme explores our language, how it sits at the heart of our culture, but also how we use it to connect. How we understand each other, how we come together to engage and cross our cultural boundaries. This is how we create a bridge, connecting language and culture. It is how we discover what we have in common and how we communicate. If language is at the foundation of our culture and identity, how we translate to understand each other provides a valuable meeting point.

By its very nature, translation is not purely rooted in language. It can be how we navigate our mixed identities, how we code-switch, changing how we speak and appear when in different situations.

The way we, and our language, is translated, can be influenced by many different things. In literature, there is a focus on how the translation of a text can impact on how a culture, a heritage or identity is perceived. We know how powerful images can be in presenting how a culture can be understood, language is the same. Translation is a powerful tool, but it can also portray power, a dominance over language which can have colonialist implications.

In 2022, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival explores the meeting points for language, the intersections are the places we want to explore.