Launch Somali Week Festival 2026 at the British Library with a live panel, Trailblazer Award and an evening of culture and creativity.

Kayd Somali Arts & Culture invites you to the launch of the 18th Annual Somali Week Festival at the British Library. This year's festival theme, "Making Home: Art in Motion," explores how art and creative expression have shaped Somali ideas of home across time and place. From the Horn of Africa to communities around the world, the festival reflects on how creativity connects people to their heritage while helping to imagine and build new homes.

In the opening panel, five exceptional creatives will discuss the theme of the festival: writer Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, playwright and actor Sabrina Ali, chef and cookbook author Ifrah F. Ahmed, fashion designer Hussein Suleiman, and Somali-Canadian filmmaker Ilhan Abdullahi. Together, they will reflect on the many meanings of home, exploring how their creative practices create space to imagine, shape, and redefine what home can be.

Following the panel, we are proud to present the inaugural Trailblazer Award, established to honour British Somali creatives whose outstanding work has made a lasting contribution. This year's Trailblazer Award will be presented to Sabrina Ali in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the arts, culture, community, and theatre. Through her acclaimed play Dugsi Dayz and her wider creative practice, Sabrina has inspired a new generation of British Somali creatives across the UK and internationally, leaving a lasting impact on the cultural landscape. The event will be hosted by Fatima Hagi.

We will close the event with entertainment (dance/music).

Ubah Cristina Ali Farah is a Somali-Italian poet, novelist, playwright and librettist. She holds a PhD from the University of Naples, L'Orientale. She is the author of three novels, Madre piccola (2007) Il comandante del fiume (2014) and La stazioni della luna (2021). Her first two novels were published in English translation as Little Mother (2011) and Commander of the River (2023) by Indiana University Press as part of the Global African Voices Series. She is also the author of the poetry collection La danza dell'orice (Juxta Press, 2020) and the collection of short stories Le ceneri della fenice (Hopefulmonster, 2022).

Sabrina Ali is a writer and actor from South West London whose work blends humour, horror and sharp social observation. After studying law, she turned to writing to create the stories and roles she rarely saw for Muslim women of colour. Her award winning debut play Dugsi Dayz premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023, winning the BBC Writersroom Popcorn Award and the New Diorama and Underbelly Untapped Award, and was named a breakout hit by Rolling Stone. The production later transferred to New Diorama and the Royal Court in 2024.Sabrina is currently adapting Dugsi Dayz for television with BBC Studios. She also has a horror feature, Juice, in development with Parkville Pictures and BBC Film, and a comedy series, The Kitchen, in development with Channel 4 and a comedy-horror play, Waali, as part of the Jerwood Arvon Writer Residency. She's also part of this years BBC Comedy Collective'

Ifrah F. Ahmed is a Somali-born, New York-based chef, author, and artist whose work centres around food, history, culture, memory, and migration. Her writing and recipes are published in The New York Times, where she is a regular contributor, and she has bylines in Vogue, Eater, TASTE, and The LA Times, amongst many others. Her popular Somali culinary pop-up Milk & Myrrh has routinely sold out in Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York and she has been featured in The Cut, Vogue, NPR, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Her highly critically acclaimed debut cookbook SOOMAALIYA is out now wherever books are sold. Named one of Cherry Bombe's "Future of Food 50", she is dedicated to the preservation of Somali culinary traditions.

Hussein Suleiman is a Somali-Dutch fashion designer and co-founder of Daily Paper, the Amsterdam-based label established alongside Jefferson Osei and Abderrahmane Trabsini. Under the founders' creative direction, Daily Paper has become known for blending African heritage with contemporary street culture, building a distinctive visual language that has earned the brand international recognition over the past decade. The label's growth from an independent blog into a global fashion name has made Suleiman part of a generation of designers reshaping how diasporic identity is expressed within contemporary fashion.

Ilhan Abdullahi is a Somali-Canadian filmmaker and community organizer based in Vancouver, Canada. Her work explores identity, belonging, and social change, with a focus on Black, Muslim, and refugee communities. She has written, produced, and directed several short films, including Dreamers, Not For Us, Unqualified, and The Houseguest, and is currently developing her debut feature film, Lifeline. Grounded in community-centred storyte

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