UK/Kenya
Season 2025
Connect. Celebrate. Inspire.
Celebrate creativity and innovation:
arts, culture, and education.
A celebration of creativity and innovation
In collaboration with partners in Kenya and the UK, we are presenting a programme of activities in 2025 that celebrates creativity and innovation across the arts, culture and heritage, and education. With a thematic focus on innovation, the UK/Kenya Season 2025 will open up new opportunities for connection, exchange, and collaboration. Running from May to November 2025 in Kenya and the UK, and a few events in Italy, the Season will feature public events spanning architecture, design, fashion, literature, music, visual arts, performing arts, and film.
A series of events and collaborations will be hosted by the Africa Centre and their partners in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Catalyst Grants
As a lead-up to the UK/Kenya Season 2025, we launched an Open Call in February 2024, offering grants of up to £5,000. Through this, 19 Catalyst Grants were awarded to support creative collaborations between the UK and Kenya. These projects have sparked meaningful connections between artists, creatives, and cultural organisations, while also laying the groundwork for future partnerships.
In 2025, 11 projects received a follow-on grant to support further development of these partnerships with activities happening between May and November 2025. We look forward to sharing their journeys and celebrating their impact with you.
Venice Biennale
The 2025 British Pavilion exhibition in Venice, titled "The Geology of Britannic Repair," will showcase a high-profile UK-Kenya collaboration as part of the British Council’s UK-Kenya Season. Selected through an Open Call launched in November 2023. The project results from innovative proposals for a UK-Kenya collaborative exhibition. It explores reversing colonial impacts through local architectural repair practices, celebrating connections between the two countries.
Practitioner team are:
- Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi, Co-founders and Directors, Cave Bureau , Nairobi
- Owen Hopkins, Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University
- Kathryn Yussuf, Professor of inhuman geography at Queen Mary University of London
As part of the programme, 46 Venice Fellows will travel to Italy over five residency months - 42 from UK partners and four from Kenya partners. The Kenyan fellows are:
- Consolata Njeri Muchina – Photographer, Shujaa Stories
- Elvis Ramboh – Contemporary Oil Painter, Shujaa Stories
- Rehema Mumbi Kabare – Constructive Engineer Manager, Nairobi Now
- Tony Bulimu Adembesa – Artist and Curator, Nairobi Now
Bradford City of Culture
In 2025, we are collaborating with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture on two projects, the Bradford - Nairobi Producer Exchange and B Day Festival (UK) a collaboration with Blankets and Wine Festival.
Bradford - Nairobi Producer Exchange
The Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, the Bradford Producing Hub and the Bridges Producers Fellowship programme in Kenya to launch an international Bradford - Nairobi Producer Exchange. Taking place between August and September 2025, this exciting exchange programme offers a unique opportunity for Bradford-based producers from the African Diaspora working in live arts, performance, or arts and culture events.
B Day Festival
Bradford 2025, UK City of Culture will collaborate with Blankets and Wine Festival to present a B Day Festival as part of the programme of in Bradford this year. This will be co-curated by the teams in Kenya Bradford and include live performances and local food and market vendors in Bradford.
Date: Saturday 6 September 2025
Location: The Beacon, Lister Park, Bradford, United Kingdom
Cultural Heritage Symposium
As part of our Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth programme, we’re hosting a hybrid symposium, Heritage in the Digital Age, from 24–26 July 2025. The event will explore how Indigenous heritage intersects with technology, bringing together community voices, creatives, researchers, and policymakers from Kenya, the Global South, and the UK. Sessions will highlight how cultural heritage and creative tech can address global challenges. Full details will be available on this site in June.
Revisit the 2022 Culture Grows symposium by watching Dr Nyairo’s keynote speech and engaging with the recording of the different session on the British Council 2022 Cultural Grows playlist.
Hay Festival and NBO LitFest
Launched by Book Bunk in 2021, NBO LitFest has fast become a standout event on the international literary calendar—celebrating free expression, cultural exchange, and bold storytelling. In 2025, the festival enters an exciting new chapter through a partnership with the Hay Festival to co-design dynamic programmes in Wales and Nairobi that will bring readers, writers and thought leaders together to celebrate and inspire different views and perspectives.
Taking place between 22 May –1 June 2025, the Hay Festival will include the participation of a Kenyan historian and digital humanities scholar, Chao Tayiana Maina, and award-winning Kenyan poet Ngartia Kimathi.
This year’s edition of the NBO Litfest is scheduled for June 26th to June 29th and will bring together authors from Kenya, the UK, and Brazil under the theme Exploring Alternative Knowledge Systems—an invitation to rethink how we learn, share, and imagine.
Programme of events
8 May
Venice Biennale Opening
British Council Pavillion, Venice Biennale
GBR - Geology of Britannic Repair is a unique UK-Kenya collaboration by a multi-disciplinary curatorial team. It runs from 10 May to 23 November. Registration opening soon
May 9
Open City and UK/KE Season
Venice, Italy
Networking event co-convened by the British Council and the Open City during Biennale vernissage. Registration opening soon.
21 May - 16 June
Opening Exhibition: In Transit Under Another Sky
Africa Centre
Featuring works from the British Council collection and East Africa Moving Image, the exhibition—drawing from Bachelard's Poetics of Space. Open event, with registration opening soon
22 May - 1 June
Hay Festival and NBO Litfest
Hay-on-Wye, Wales
This edition will include the participation of a Kenyan historian and digital humanities scholar, Chao Tayiana Maina, and award-winning Kenyan poet Ngartia Kimathi.
Registration opening soon
24 May- 1 June
Coffee and Chocolate Festival
Africa Centre
A showcase of African coffee and chocolate brands, highlighting Kenyan organic producers. The event is supported by the Kenyan High Commission in London.
Registration opening soon
1 June
Sounds of Freedom
Richmond Park
An immersive experience of the Mau Mau struggle for independence in colonial Kenya.
Registration opening soon
2 -7 June
South by Southwest (SXSW)
Shoreditch
A partnership to host a Kenyan delegation for a discussion on AI's impact on music and creative industries.
Registration opening soon
9 June
Architecture as an Earth Practice
Royal Geographic Society, London
Stella Mutegi, Kabage Karanja, Owen Hopkins, Kathryn Yusoff
A lecture-performance by the 2025 British Pavilion curators exploring architecture's ties to earth, and themes of repair, reparation, and resistance.
Registration opening soon
11 June
Afropolitan Ecologies
Africa Centre
Designed collaboratively with the London Metropolitan University, the theme of the dialogue is - Imagining a climate-smart Kenya by design.
Registration opening soon
26 June - 29 June
Nairobi Litfest
McMillan Memorial Library, Nairobi
The Nairobi Literary Festival, in partnership with Hay Festival, will feature authors from Kenya, the UK, and Brazil. This year’s theme, Exploring Alternative Knowledge Systems.
Open event. Registration will open soon.
23 - 26 July
Cultural Heritage Symposium
Nairobi National Museum
A hybrid symposium on Heritage in the Digital Age, exploring Indigenous heritage and technology. Held in partnership with institutions in Kenya and the UK, it spotlights the British Council’s Culture Responds work.
Registration opening soon
24 -26 July
Cultural Heritage Symposium
Lagos
A hybrid symposium on Heritage in the Digital Age, exploring Indigenous heritage and technology. Held in partnership with institutions in Kenya and the UK, it spotlights the British Council’s Culture Responds work.
Registration opening soon
9 -10 August
African Fashion Week London
Truman Brewery
Engagement in panel conversations, showcasing opportunities and participation in the market.
Registration opening soon
6 September
Bradford City x Blankets & Wine
Bradford
Bradford is the UK's city of culture for 2025. The Kenya showcase will feature contemporary Kenyan live music performances delivered in collaboration with UK musicians.
Registration opening soon
19 September
Manyatta Mengi Mashariki
London, Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh
Short Film Programme by Wanjeri Gakuru, Hawa Essuman and Parable
A 90-minute screening and panel series touring London, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland in September 2025, led by members of the curatorial team.
Registration to open nearer to the event
TBC October
Creative Industries Symposium
Somerset House
UK-Kenya partnerships exploring fashion, visual arts, music, and funding through discussions on identity, agency, and decolonisation, with breakout sessions and networking.
Registration opening soon
23 November
Venice Biennale Closing Ceremony
British Council at Venice Biennale
Final day of the Venice Biennale exhibition.
Registration to open nearer to the event
November
Art and Culture Moment
Nairobi
Open studios and showcases highlighting the work of British Kenya Arts programme partners and the wider Nairobi sector.
Registration to open nearer to the event
Built with Shorthand