UK/Kenya
Season 2025
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.
In transit under another sky
In transit under another sky was first showed in Kampala and Nairobi as part of Art Exchange: Moving image, a 2023–2025 programme supporting curators from Africa and South Asia to engage with moving image works and the British Council Visual Arts Collection. Now, it arrives in London at the Africa Centre for the UK/Kenya Season 2025. The show explores themes of home, memory, and migration, and runs at the Centre until 16 June.
The exhibition explores art and artists living in-between spaces, geographical and identity-based, and how movement shapes experience. It uses moving images to explore feelings of transit, borders, and the space between arrival and departure.
Artists are Larry Achiampong, Mohamed Almusibli, Kabi Kimari, Mogoi, Neema Ngelime, SCARLETMOTIFF and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa.
Catalyst Grants
The projects cover various themes including, Theatre and Dance, Creative Tech and Digital Innovation, Visual Arts and Film, Music, Cultural Heritage, Diversity, and Community Building. These projects lift up marginalized voices, celebrate cultural pride, and spark cross-cultural conversations and social change through creative collaboration.
The grant brings together creatives and cultural hubs from the UK and Kenya to work on exciting projects, like a comedian from Manchester teaming up with Kenyan comedians for a show; music producers from both countries experimenting with new ways to create music across continents; and gaming fans and companies exploring how games can drive social activism, especially around climate change. A wide range of events, workshops, and activities will take place in Kenya, the UK, and beyond, open for audiences to explore and experience.
Venice Biennale
The 2025 British Pavilion exhibition in Venice, titled "The Geology of Britannic Repair," will be showcasing 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 launched 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, is teaming up with Blankets and Wine Festival to bring the B Day Festival to Bradford this year. The Kenya and Bradford teams are co-curating the event, which includes live performances, local food, and market stalls.
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.
Catch Dr Nyairo’s keynote and other sessions from the 2022 Culture Grows symposium on the British Council’s Culture 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 includes the participation of a Kenyan historian and digital humanities scholar, Chao Tayiana Maina, and award-winning Kenyan poet Ngartia Kimathi.
This year’s NBO Litfest returns from 26 to 29 June with four vibrant days of conversation, creativity, and connection. The 2025 edition brings together over 60 writers, poets, artists, thinkers, and educators from across Africa and around the world for a programme of 43 sessions that promise to spark new ideas and perspectives.
Centred on the theme Exploring Alternative Knowledge Systems, the festival invites us to rethink how we learn, share, and imagine beyond the usual ways of knowing.
Programme of events
8 May
Venice Biennale Opening
British Council Pavilion, 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.
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.
21 May - 16 June
Exhibition: in transit under another sky
The Africa Centre, London
Featuring works from the British Council collection and East Africa Moving Image
1 June
Making Space: Inside, Outside
A partnership of young curators from Nairobi’s GoDown Arts Centre and Leeds’ Transform Festival to amplify underrepresented voice
22 May -1 June
Hay Festival and NBO Litfest
Hay-on-Wye, Wales
This edition includes the participation of a Kenyan historian and digital humanities scholar, Chao Tayiana Maina, and award-winning Kenyan poet Ngartia Kimathi.
24 May- 1June
Coffee and Chocolate Festival
The Africa Centre, London
A showcase of African coffee and chocolate brands, highlighting Kenyan organic producers. The event is supported by the Kenyan High Commission in London.
1 June
Sounds of Freedom
Richmond Park, London & Karura, Nairobi
An immersive experience of the Mau Mau struggle for independence in colonial Kenya.
2 -7 June
South by Southwest (SXSW)
Shoreditch, London
A partnership to host a Kenyan delegation for a discussion on AI's impact on music and creative industries.
9 June
Architecture as an Earth Practice
Royal Geographical Society, London
A talk by Stella Mutegi, Kabage Karanja, Owen Hopkins and Kathryn Yusoff,
curators of the Venice Architecture Biennale
11 June
Afropolitan Ecologies
The Africa Centre, London
Designed collaboratively with the London Metropolitan University, the theme of the dialogue is, Imagining a climate-smart Kenya by design.
14 June - 19 June
Bien and Chimano Events
02 Arena, London
Fashion, music & dance showcases and workshops by the Sauti sol band members.
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 is, Exploring Alternative Knowledge Systems.
18 June
Makonde Sculpture in Eastern African Art
Alliance Française, Dar es Salaam
Exhibition: A curated selection from the Lalani Collection, featuring restored works by Morris Mbangwende, a protégé of Chanuo Maundu.
20 June
Makonde Modern: Reframing Makonde Heritage (Workshop 1)
Alliance Française, Dar es Salaam
Reflections by Dar es Salaam blackwood sculptors on the Salim Lalani Collection, expanding to Makonde sculpting as a cultural movement, its heritage, and current questions of identity, environment, and creative sustainability in Tanzania.
20 June
MAFILO Arts and Film Festival 2.0
Online
Digital exhibition of deaf artists
Registration details coming soon
26 June
Makonde Modern: Makonde in Art History (Workshop 2)
Virtual
Makonde Art and Identity in Eastern Africa: A critical review of constructions of stigma, fear, and fascination, alongside blind spots and biased perspectives on Makonde creativity—drawing on key academic provocations by Susan Vogel and Eddy Chambers.
11 July
Virtual
Makonde Sculpture in Eastern African Art (Workshop 3)
Reviews the practices of Makonde art patrons, collectors, and promoters, with reflections on future exhibitions and digital representation of Makonde art.
12 August
Go Down Arts, Nairobi
Making Space: Inside, Outside
A Leeds - Nairobi connection in celebration of Youth Day 2025
Registration details coming soon
15 August
Virtual
Consensus Gentium 2: Future Histories
Launch of the interactive storytelling experience featuring AI visuals, branching narratives, and voice interaction.
20 August
Virtual
MAFILO Arts and Film Festival 2.0
Digital exhibition of deaf artists
Registration details coming 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
SOAS, 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, London
Engagement in panel conversations, showcasing opportunities and participation in the market.
Registration opening soon
6 September
Bradford City x Blankets & Wine
Bradford, West Yorkshire
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 opening soon
TBC October
Creative Industries Symposium
Somerset House, London
UK-Kenya partnerships exploring fashion, visual arts, music, and funding through discussions on identity, agency, and decolonisation, with breakout sessions and networking.
Registration to open in June
23 November
Venice Biennale Closing Ceremony
British Council Pavilion, Venice Biennale
Final day of the Venice Biennale exhibition.
TBC 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
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