Free entry
Sat 18 July, 6.00 – 10pm
Assembly Room
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
This event is free of charge, but we encourage you to RSVP using the link on the page.
Join Somali Museum UK for an evening of performative lectures, conversations and music, exploring what “Somalinimo” means as an artist, and envisioning what a contemporary Somali museum could look like.
The event will mark the launch of the Somali Museum’s new website, with a live gathering in Assembly Room at Whitechapel Gallery. Inspired by the legacy of British-Somali punk pioneer Poly Styrene, this intergenerational gathering and performance lecture embraces punk as a living practice rooted in disruption, radical thinking, and community resistance.
The event will feature artist Ayan Farah, curator Amal Elhag, writer/filmmaker Celeste Bell and artist educator Hudda Khaireh. In celebration of Xagaa, the Somali summer new year, we cultivate a space for imagination towards an understanding of what the contemporary Somali Museum UK could hold, celebrate and become. Rooted in community solidarity, the Somali Museum UK asks us to think radically about what kind of culture we wish to participate in and develop.
The gathering is supported by rhythms that nurture Somali heritage, from co-collaborators DJ Elmi Original and Ibby, whose sonic practice fuses Somali oral traditions, instruments, Afrobeat, RnB and Hip Hop into an expansive, eclectic musical landscape to hold space, explore and interrogate these emergent thoughts.
Last entry at 9.30pm.
This event is part of Backyard Biennial.
Somali Museum UK is a physical, mobile, and living archive sharing stories from the Somali diaspora. It brings together diverse voices and experiences, ensuring they are seen, remembered, and preserved. The museum radically reimagines what a ‘museum’ is and what it can do. Combining an art gallery, library, archive, museum, dance and music studio as well as cultural centre into one space, Somali Museum UK collapses traditional museum models and their colonial conception – becoming a home where stories of past, present and futures can grow and flourish.
Ayan Farah is a Somali-Swedish artist based in Stockholm. Working with painting, textiles, and material-led research, her practice explores landscape as physical, political, and poetic systems. Focusing on land, water and the knowledge embedded in materials as a carrier of memory, she works with locally sourced sediment and natural elements. Through painting, ceramic, embroidery, and installation, her work follows the movement of matter across borders and ecologies, where geology, labour, and colonial histories converge. She has exhibited internationally, most recently at the Somalia Pavilion, 61st Biennale di Venezia, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Fondazione Prada, Venice, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn and Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow.
Amal Alhaag is an Amsterdam-based curator, cultural organizer, and researcher. Her work unfolds through short- and long-term collaborations with people, collectives, initiatives and institutions. Alhaag is the co-initiator, facilitator, and collaborator of various interdisciplinary platforms and spaces, including Metro54, The Side Room, Sustaining the Otherwise, and The Anarchist Citizenship.
Celeste Bell is a writer, filmmaker, and the director of the Poly Styrene Archive. She co-authored Day Glo: The Poly Styrene Story and co-directed the award-winning documentary Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché. As the primary curator of her mother’s creative estate, Celeste manages a vast archive of artwork, diaries, and music, overseeing high-profile global licensing and international exhibitions. Alongside Vivien Goldman and Lauren Jones, she is the co-founder of the Up Yours! Collective, an organisation dedicated to preserving and celebrating the legacy of women in punk and alternative music.
Hudda Khaireh is an independent researcher, lecturer and artist with a background in Public International Law whose practice focuses on the position of Black peoples globally. Hudda has shared work at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Project Row Houses in Houston, Chisenhale Gallery and DIY Cultures. Hudda belongs to the Black Feminist artist- collective, Thick/er Black Lines as well as OOMK Zine and Numbi Arts.
Elmi Original is a DJ, sound artist and experimental musician whose work fuses Somali oral traditions with contemporary sonic experimentation. Drawing from Somali folk music, Somali poetry “Gabay, and the rhythms of the Somali diaspora, Elmi blends traditional instruments like the oud and durbaan with field recordings and electronic textures to create immersive, narrative-driven soundscapes.
Ibby is an emerging DJ whose sets are rooted in R&B, rhythm, and the sounds that move both body and memory. Drawn to the spaces where genres collide, he blends familiar grooves with unexpected influences, weaving together hip-hop, house, baile funk, techno, and beyond.For this special event, Ibby’s intention is to amalgamate modern genres with the sweet sounds of classic Somali songs, reflecting the ever evolving cultural identity of the Somali diaspora.
