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ARTCORE MOBILE FESTIVAL 2026

- A Place for Truth -

What is ArtCore Mobile Festival all about?


ArtCore Mobile Festival is a community arts festival. We bring local and international artists, neighbourhood communities, children, adults and elders together through exhibitions, workshops, performances, film and conversations.

Our aim is to create spaces where people can meet through art, express themselves and explore the realities they share and experience. The festival is open to everyone, and all activities are free of charge.

Under this year's theme A Place for Truth (Ilé Òtítọ́), we explore how we understand truth, how our experiences shape what we believe, and how we can learn from perspectives different from our own.

We are bringing art and reflection into the neighbourhoods of Warri und Lagos, creating opportunities for artistic expression, exchange and collective experience within everyday life.

Why did we feel the need to create this festival?


Most of us organising ArtCore Mobile grew up in the communities where the festival takes place. We are all artists ourselves. Each person’s life was shaped by encounters with local creatives and small collectives who offered free workshops or low-cost training to young people. Through opportunities for international exchange and performances, these young people became artists themselves and found their place and power of expression through dance, painting or poetry. These experiences opened up possibilities that might otherwise have remained out of reach. As we appreciate our teachers, we open up spaces and offer workshops to young and old within the neighbourhoods of Bariga and Warri, celebrating the transformative power we have experienced ourselves.

This is one of the reasons we believe community arts matter. Access to artistic expression, education and international exchange can change how people see themselves, their surroundings and what might be possible for their futures. These opportunities should not depend on where someone grows up or whether they can afford it or not.

We are organising ArtCore Mobile alongside our everyday responsibilities, investing our time, skills and energy in making it happen. We currently work without funding, which makes every part of the festival a collective effort.

You can support us through the Crowdfunding we initiated. We do this because we believe that accessible spaces for artistic expression and community exchange are not a luxury. They are a meaningful part of how communities can learn, connect and create opportunities for one another.

ArtCore Mobile is also an act of passing something on: the opportunities that once made a difference in our own lives can become opportunities for others.

Why “A Place for Truth”?

We live in a world where the stories we are told do not align with the realities we experience. Questions of power, inequality, suppression and whose voices are heard shape how we understand the world.

So, how do we know what is true?

At ArtCore Mobile, we do not approach truth as a single answer that one person can possess or impose on someone else. What we understand as true is shaped by what we see, hear, feel, remember and live through. Two people can experience the same situation differently, carrying different memories, emotions and interpretations of what happened.

Recognising these differences does not mean that there is no ground we can meet. Rather, it invites us to examine how we form our understanding, whose experiences are acknowledged and what we might learn by listening to one another.

Our exploration is also rooted in Ifá, a central body of knowledge and spiritual philosophy within Yoruba culture. Within this tradition, truth is connected to wisdom, moral balance and the relationship between human beings and the world around. It can be understood not only through reflection and interpretation, but also through a sense of inner integrity, spiritual attunement and the guidance of Ifá and its custodians.

Through dance, performance, visual art, film, poetry and conversation, we want to make these questions tangible. Artistic practices can give moldable forms to memories, emotions and experiences that are difficult to express through the duality of language. They can help us approach complex realities from different angles.

A Place for Truth is therefore not about delivering a final answer. It is an invitation to question what we take for granted, remain open to other perspectives and consider how we practise truth in our everyday lives.

Why bring art into public space?

Art can happen in a theatre or gallery. It also happens silently in the growth of a plant or in the walk to the market. We choose market squares, abandoned buildings, streets within a neighbourhood.

For us, bringing art into public space is a way of weaving artistic practice into the places, people and realities that shape us and therefore our artistic practices and expression.

Access to cultural spaces is not equal for everyone. Cost, distance, unfamiliarity with cultural institutions and other everyday barriers can determine who can participate. By bringing the festival into neighbourhoods, we invite people to encounter art where their daily live is taking place.

Public space is never empty. It is part of the social life of a city: a place where people meet, work, move, negotiate differences and are visible. When artistic practices situates itself in these spaces we dance with the unexpected. 

ArtCore Mobile connects institutional and established cultural spaces with everyday public life. We want art to be accessible without losing its complexity, and we want communities to be more than an audience: their experiences, knowledge and participation are part of what gives the festival meaning.

Art cannot resolve structural inequalities on its own. But it can create moments in which people listen, express themselves, encounter unfamiliar perspectives and imagine different ways of being together.

Why Warri and Lagos?

ArtCore Mobile takes place in Warri and Lagos because most of the festival organizers are rooted in the communities, relationships and artistic networks that connect the people behind it to these places.

In Warri, from 24 to 28 November 2026, a collective exhibition will bring together artistic works around the theme of truth. Morning workshops will invite people from the surrounding neighbourhoods to explore expression through artistic practice. The results will contribute to a public performance in a market square, followed by a community celebration.

In Lagos, from 2 to 6 December 2026, the festival continues in Bariga. Dance and performance workshops, outdoor performances, a film screening and conversation, a small symposium and encounters with Babalawo from Ifá will create different ways to engage with the festival theme. A collective exhibition will also take shape within the neighbourhood.

Each city offers its own context, relationships and encounters. Rather than treating Warri and Lagos as interchangeable locations, we let the festival grow through the people and places that host it.

Join us in Warri and Lagos.

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