Whitley Arts Festival is an innovative and nationally focussed festival that celebrates and provides a platform for new work. The festival includes exhibitions of new work and retrospectives of renowned artists, seminars, workshops, screenings, master classes and awards.
WAF was launched in 2004 in Whitley, South Reading – one of the 5% poorest wards in the UK. In 2008 witnessed the addition of the Reading Experimental Film Festival, the first commissioning strands that continue to this day. Since then the festival has grown into one that commissions and programmes challenging and experimental work and seeks ways to engage new audiences.
Notable Whitley Arts Festival commissions include Mark Aerial Waller’s film ‘Karpouziaaa’ in 2009, who went on to exhibit at the Tate, Matt Hulse’s Audible Picture Show, created for the 2008 festival and which continues to tour internationally, Raymond Yiu’s choral commission ‘Timeless Way of Cities’, covered on Radio 3 and for 2012 the festival celebrated its fifth commissioning year by bringing Siobhan Davies Dance to the festival. The festival takes place across during October and November. The festival attracts an audience of over 3000.
The Whitley Arts festival is run by Hogarth Productions.