The flagship event for this year's Bristol Refugee Festival takes place this weekend. The celebrating sanctuary event takes place at Queen Square from 12.30pm to 6pm on Sunday (June 25).
The festival, which started last week, was set up in 2017 to coincide with the national Refugee Week. It aims to bring together communities from across Bristol and beyond to connect and celebrate the contributions, creativity and resilience of people seeking sanctuary.
This year’s flagship event has a diverse international line-up of musicians including the Mozambican rapper MoYah who has performed on BBC One and uses his own experience of war and displacement to uplift audiences and promote a message of love and unity. Bristol based Alphonse Daudet Touna from Cameroon will be performing with his band, Hélélé and playing the Balafon; a West African instrument that is similar to the xylophone and performing music inspired by the rhythms of the Bantu forest in West Africa.
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Local musicians will also be performing such as Bristol’s refugee ensemble the Dovetail Orchestra , and the Bristol Griot Moussa Kouyate . There will also be performances from Iranian singer Bahman Salahshour and Nabra ‘oud’ duo , Ali Elmubarak from Sudan and Knud Stüwe from Germany, who first met as a result of Bristol Refugee Rights.
There will be plenty of opportunities to experience dance from across different cultures with dance groups performing on the day from Nicaragua, Tibet, West Africa and a collaborative dance from village 101.
There will be free family activities, food and refreshments served by Moveable Feast and partners, information stalls, refugee trader stalls. There will also be activities taking place at Bristol Old Vic and the Arnolfini, including workshops run by Bristol Refugee Artists Collective.
2023 marks the 25th anniversary of Refugee Week with cultural events taking place across the country to promote the desire for an inclusive society where refugees and asylum seekers can live safely within inclusive and continue to make a valuable contribution.
Other events taking place in Bristol this week include a film screening of On Our Doorstep - a documentary on life at the Calais refugee camp followed by a Q&A session with Thomas Laurance, director of Care4Calais at the Cube on Wednesday, June 21. There will also be an Afghan Peace Feast on Thursday June 22 at Trinity centre for an evening of Afghan food, music and stories.
The full music lineup for Sundaycan be found here . The full programme for the Bristol Refugee Festival can be found here .
