Three of our most-cherished North-West organisations are pooling their brilliance from today (Thursday 12 June) – and across the weekend to bring us Horizons Festival 2025.
HOME and Community Arts North West (CAN) are bringing back Horizons Festival as part of this year’s Refugee Week – and it all kicks off at Northern Quarter’s amazing music space Band on the Wall.
If you don’t know this venue – which has recently enjoyed a major renovation – then now is definitely the moment to head along to one of the North of England’s most vibrant music spots: famous for its heritage and for platforming both established legends and emerging artists. Band on the Wall is simultaneously a keystone for community initiatives and cultural events.
Refugee Week is the world’s largest arts and culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity, and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Founded in the UK in 1998, it takes place everyJune alongside World Refugee Day (June 20) and has since grown into a global movement across 15+ countries. This year, Refugee Week 2025 (16–22 June) invites everyone to explore the theme "Community as a Superpower" a celebration of the incredible everyday. Ordinary and extraordinary. Simple acts of shared generosity. Kindness multiplied to become an unstoppable force. With over one million participants, Refugee Week unites people through thousands of events and activities, from performances and talks to community gatherings and creative projects. A community-powered festival, it is shaped by individuals, organisations, schools, libraries, venues, community groups, artists, and more. Refugee Week UK is a partnership project coordinated by Counterpoints Arts,working with a wide network of national partners, organisations, and cultural institutions.
On Thursday Horizons Festival kicks off at the Swan Street venue, where Manchester’s global diaspora will be taking centre stage, celebrating Band on the Wall and CAN’s World of Song programme. Audiences are in for a global music treat, with contemporary and traditional sounds from Somalia with Xaawo Kiin, the rhythms of Latin America and the Caribbean with the Guacamaya Latin Band, and the folk music of Iran with the Hamsaz Ensemble. Plus, 11-piece, cross cultural youth band Without Borders are making their debut. Not a night to be missed for any fans of fresh sounds, different styles, genres and global heritages.
Celebrating creativity, community, and connection, this year’s theme More in Common reflects a shared desire to build understanding and prevent divisions in society caused by fear and misinformation, championing the power of art to unite people across cultures.
Community Arts North West (CAN) is at the cutting edge of community arts practice in the UK. CAN was established in 1978 and has a rich history of supporting the creative aspirations of Greater Manchester’s diverse communities, including young people, especially those who are traditionally excluded from creative opportunities and who are newly arrived in the UK, including people who have experienced forced migration. Through its commitment to co-creation and partnership, CAN brings people together to create new work across art forms, including music, performing, digital and visual arts. CAN regularly shares work with audiences in community venues; in Greater Manchester’s art galleries, museums, and performance spaces; and the city’s festivals such as Horizons and the Manchester International Festival.
CAN’s collaboration with HOME created the Horizons Festival. The festival is part of Exodus, CAN’s flagship arts programme, which was first established in 2004, as a pioneering, nationally respected programme of participatory cultural production. The Exodus programme works with new migrants, including people who have experienced forced migration, and more established communities across a range of traditional and contemporary art forms. Exodus brings together a rich mix of people and partnerships to work creatively across Greater Manchester and the North-West, with national and international impact and reach.
Curated in collaboration with the Arts & Migration Group of international artists, Horizons 2025 pays tribute to those who advocate for unity, justice, equality, and reconciliation. The festival honours the artists and communities building bridges, creating connections, and challenging hate and despair while celebrating the richness of global cultures through a week of visual art, film, community events, family-friendly workshops, and live music.
On Friday 13 June, HOME is the location for the unveiling of Between the Lines, a new public commission by photographer Pinar Yildiz, which will be accompanied by performances from local musicians. Refugee Action will also present their brand-new report Asylum in the UK: A Frontline for Racial Justice through a compelling panel discussion highlighting the urgent need to address racism in the asylum system featuring Jonathan Kazembe (Refugee Action) and Catherine Lebadou (Lived Experience Activist from RAS Voice).
The night concludes with the Horizons Festival After-Party + Networking event with a special live performance from Refugee Action’s band, hosted by CAN & HOME’s Arts and Migration Group of international artists.
On Saturday 14 June, families are front-and-centre, as we’re invited to dive into a day of creativity, with amazing free activities and workshops. From making paper mosaics with artist Ahmed Elzber, Djembe drumming with musician Godfrey Pambalipe, to getting the chance to learn the steps of traditional Palestinian Dabke Dance with Fares Farraj, while also creating prints with artist Linda Wachaga. As if that wasn’t enough: families can also enjoy a specially curated film in HOME’s cinema, programmed by Culture Bridge.
For those interested in exploring global heritage crafts, Cartwheel Arts are going to be hosting hands-on sessions, including traditional Ukrainian Petrykivka painting with Valeria Leonova and clay tea light making in honour of Diwali with Deepa Parma. These artists are part of the Crafting Heritage project, a two-year exploration of heritage crafts thriving within Rochdale’s vibrant communities with lived experience of forced migration.
Art lovers can also celebrate the unveiling of a brand-new visual art exhibition at HOME’s Inspire Gallery created by WAST (Women Seeking Asylum Together), a network of sanctuary-seeking women in Greater Manchester. In collaboration with visual artist Ashleigh Beattie, they have created original new works, accompanied by a live performance from the WAST Choir.
Saturday afternoon brings the Global Youth Takeover in Theatre 2, a vibrant showcase of theatre, dance, live music, and animation created by young people from Afrocats, Community Arts North West, Band on the Wall, and Culture Bridge’s community-based creative engagement programmes. Unmissable performances from Manchester’s young talent, including children and young people who have recently settled in the UK, make Theatre 2 the only thing Google maps needs to know.
On Sunday 15 June, the festival closes with Arts and Migration On Screen, a captivating series of short films from animation to experimental documentary exploring migration, belonging, and community through the eyes of local filmmakers. The screening includes HOME’s newly commissioned documentary by Mohammed Ali Sheida, which shares personal stories from some of the inspiring international artists who have found a home and creative voice in Manchester.
Community Arts North West Creative Director Anna VuThompson sums it up: “Horizons Festival is an essential space where unheard voices are amplified and celebrated. It’s more than just a festival; it’s a statement. It’s a bold, creative declaration that we, as communities, have far more in common than that which divides us.
“In partnership with HOME, and this year working with Band on the Wall, we are proud to create a festival that brings communities together, uniting people through joy, celebration, and powerful provocation. Horizons entertains whilst shifting perspectives, using creativity to spark dialogue about the world we live in.
“It’s a showcase for Greater Manchester’s most exciting creative talent from communities that are often overlooked. A space where they can trust their creativity will be honoured, authentically and accurately. Through the Horizons Festival, we don’t just witness change – we make it happen, together.”
HOME’s Creative Engagement Visual Arts Practitioner Lucy Follon is similarly passionate about this weekend’s activities: “Horizons Festival is authentic Mancunian magic, an unapologetic creative expression of our culture and communities. It’s a vibrant celebration of artistic practice shaped by migration, cultural hybridity and displacement. It’s a multi-artform, multilingual, multilateral showcase.
“We are so proud to work alongside Community Arts North West and Band on The Wall to present this year’s exceptional programme. For nearly a decade, Horizons has been a platform for Manchester’s most crucial and creative voices to draw on their personal histories, inherited traditions, cultural practices, and complexities of multifaceted identities. It’s a space for both joyous and challenging work – work that celebrates diasporic experiences and unflinchingly provokes the most urgent conversations for right here, right now.”
Tickets for Horizons Festival 2025 are available from homemcr.org or by contacting the box office at 0161 200 1500.
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Header Image: Nisa Chisipochinyi (Shirlaine Forrest)
