About the festival

Every October, artists from across Sierra Leone come together in Freetown for three days of performances, workshops, and honest conversation about what it takes to build a creative life here. The festival is built around what artists actually need: stages to perform on, rooms to learn in, and the space to talk openly about the realities of making art in Sierra Leone.

What the festival does

The Inkundla Arts Festival brings together poets, musicians, visual artists, and theatre makers for a programme that goes beyond performance. We run workshops where artists develop new work. We host the Rise & Riot Poetry Slam. We bring artists in from outside Freetown and cover their travel and accommodation so the festival is not just a Freetown story. We partner with organisations working in mental health, education, and disability inclusion, because the conversations that matter most do not stop at the stage. And every year, we reach a little further: to new audiences, to young people, to artists from other countries.

2024

31 October to 2 November
Aurora Foundation. Mango Peak. Hotel Barmoi.

The inaugural edition ran across three venues in Freetown over three days. We hosted conversations on diversity and funding in Sierra Leone’s creative sector, held a panel on inclusion, and launched The I Anthology, our first poetry collection co-published with LitFest Harare in Zimbabwe. A hybrid open mic connected artists in the room to others joining from abroad. There was a theatre piece on addiction, live music performances, and the first ever Rise & Riot Poetry Slam. Every event was pay-what-you-can.

2025: Mind Matters

31 October to 2 November
“Mind Matters: Stories That Heal”

For the second edition, we partnered with Safe Minds Haven Sierra Leone and centred the programme around mental health, ancestral stories, and what it means to take care of yourself on and off stage. EducAid students joined for a Story Lab, and we brought in five artists from Lunsar and Foredugu and one from Kenema, with their transport and accommodation covered by the festival. We added a family day with art activities for young people and their parents. Salma won the Rise & Riot slam.

2026: Open Roads, Open Stages

29 to 31 October

The third edition. For the first time, months of EU-supported creative workshops and residencies are feeding directly into the festival programme. The stage in October will carry work that has been developing since mid-year. We are also planning to welcome international artists to this year’s line-up.

More details coming soon.

Get in touch

inkundla444@gmail.com
+232 77 472 549