Wedding Songs & Agit Prop is an evening of performance, reading, reflection and collective encounter bringing together artists, writers, musicians and activists whose work engages questions of racial justice, environmental justice, memory, displacement and repair.
Presented by Radical Ecology as part of London Climate Action Week, the event takes its title from two traditions that are rarely brought together: the Wedding Song as a practice of cultural continuity, kinship and celebration, and Agit Prop as a form of artistic intervention shaped by political struggle. Between these poles, the evening opens a shared space for considering how communities endure, adapt and imagine futures amid the overlapping crises of the 2020s.
At the heart of the programme is a participatory performance led by transdisciplinary artist Joshua Woolford, creating an environment for listening, contemplation and exchange. The title’s invocation of “Wedding Songs” draws inspiration from the work of Fozia Ismail, whose research into Somali nomadic traditions foregrounds forms of cultural inheritance that persist despite the disruptions of war, migration and climate breakdown. Her work offers a reminder that ecological crisis is not only a matter of environmental change but also of the fragile continuities of culture, memory and belonging.
The evening also features a reading by the acclaimed novelist, playwright and screenwriter Courttia Newland from his forthcoming essay collection, The Art of Opposition, a meditation on creativity, resistance and the role of the artist in troubled times. Alongside this, the poet and curator Mahmoud Al-Shaer shares work written in the context of genocide and exile from Gaza. Curated by Radical Ecology Director, Ashish Ghadiali, featured participants also include Yasmin Ahammad, Hope Chilokoa-Mullen (participant & producer), Emily Churchill Zaraa, Angela Camacho, Hunter Smith, Iman Datoo, Tsitsi Mareika Chirikure and Jelena Sofronijevic.
An invitation to gather, listen and reflect together, Wedding Songs & Agit Prop is neither a conventional performance nor a panel discussion, but rather a space of emergence where we can consider what, in this era of interconnected crises, we are losing, what persists, and what new forms of solidarity might yet emerge. You are warmly invited to come into this space just as you are and to participate in an evening shaped by generosity, conversation and collective imagination.