After a successful pilot in 2023, Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival is returning for a full launch this June to showcase arts, culture and community.

The theme for this year's festival is Cultural Reforesting, which aims to promote positive social change and conversation by asking 'how can we renew our relationship with nature?'. 

From 13-29 June 2025, venues and public spaces across Richmond will host over 50 events including music, dance, theatre, art installations and exhibitions, as artists seek to answer the question.

The festival was instigated by Richmond Arts Service in response to Culture Richmond's 10-year framework, which is a plan for the borough to establish a vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape by 2031.

Working with partners across the borough, including public libraries, theatres, schools, and charities, this innovative programme of events invites audiences to engage with artist-led projects set in the context of the ecological crises. 

This year's headliners includes artists, activists, storytellers, scientists, and thinkers who will interpret the theme of cultural reforesting.

The various events will take place across the London Borough of Richmond including three hub spaces in Richmond: The Exchange in Twickenham, OSO Arts Centre and Hampton Common. 

Tania El Khoury is a Lebanese live artist who creates interactive installations and performances that reflect on the production of collective memory.

Created in collaboration with a trauma therapist, El Khoury's guided somatic experience, Memory of Birds (13–15 June) explores the political violence that literally and figuratively gets buried in contested lands.

The experience is co-presented by Shubbak Festival and Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival, supported by Arts Council England.

ORIGIN (13–22 June) is a deep listening experience by A Right/Left Project, ran by Stephen Dobbie and Colin Nightingale, who are Associate Artists at Punchdrunk.

Combining spatial sound design, lighting and composition, ORIGIN invites audiences into a collective deep listening experience at the cross-over between art and wellness.

Born out of a desire to create a calming space to allow audiences to slow down and disconnect from the everyday, this audio experience explores themes around the cycle of life and human connection with nature.

With music composed in collaboration with Toby Young and lighting design by Ben Donoghue, each cycle of the experience reveals what is hidden at its core says organisers.

The Waves are Rising (13–29 June) is a unique Augmented Reality work which presents Raqs Media's beautiful poetry about the environment as an engaging digital performance.

The piece focuses on how humans in cities are casting waste into waterways, specifically the Thames, with further exploration of trade and the Empire and the changing nature of rivers, seas and weather as a result of climate change.

Garbh (14 – 15 June), which means 'womb' in Gujarati, is an exhilarating outdoor participatory dance performance by Shyam Dattani.

Set in a striking sand terrain which enriches movement, the dance offers a multisensory celebration of heritage, community and innovation created by British-Gujarati artists.

International artists Ackroyd & Harvey will lead the Beuys' Acorns Oak Circle (21 June), to celebrate the Summer Solstice. Ackroyd & Harvey will introduce participants to Beuys' Acorns and the impact of German artist Joseph Beuys' seminal artwork "7000 Oaks" on their work.

Regarded as one of the leading artists of the 20th century Beuys was an environmental campaigner and educational activist.

The artists will encourage participation from the attendees to make placards, posters and crowns celebrating the solstice, nature and trees.

This circle of oaks, grown by artists and planted in partnership with the Richmond Arts Service is a festival hub space.

They will also lead a Solistice Song Ritual led by choirmaster Philippa Snell of the Wild Choir, amongst the circle of trees.

The circle of trees have been grown from acorns collected from Joseph Beuy's 7000 Oaks artwork.

Beuys held great respect for the culture of tree veneration and interest in Celtic myth and artefacts.

This natural voice workshop invites audiences to join the oak circle and partake in a simple ritual to celebrate the longest day of the year.

Actor and author, Paterson Joseph will present Sancho & Me (25 June), which is an extraordinary story of an unlikely hero.

The event is part-biography and par-dramatised readings from Paterson's acclaimed novel The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho. 

Sancho was born on a slave ship on the Atlantic Ocean in 1729, yet he became a writer, composer, shopkeeper and respected 'man of letters' in 18th century London - the first man of African heritage to vote in Britain.

This is a special iteration for the festival, as Joseph focuses on the natural landscape of Richmond, which was also Sancho's home.

Councillor John Coombs, Richmond Council's Spokesperson for Arts, commented: "Richmond upon Thames has long been a home for artists, a place where creativity takes root and flourishes.

"Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival highlights this spirit, using the arts to tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

"Cultural Reforesting is about more than just nature – it's about renewal, regeneration, and the power of creativity to inspire change.

"Through this festival, we invite everyone to be part of a movement that reimagines our future, reconnects us with the natural world, and proves that art has a vital role to play in the climate conversation."

Full programme details can be found on the Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival website at: https://richmondartsandideas.com/