Being Human Festival launches its 2024 programme on the theme of landmarks

Being Human Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, and has today launched its programme of free events across the UK, running from 7 - 16 November, 2024. 

Drawing inspiration from the theme ‘Landmarks’, the festival presents a programme of over 230 events in 58 towns and cities, exploring everything from natural landscapes and iconic monuments to famous anniversaries and personal milestones.  

It has been ten years since the UK’s national festival of the humanities was established in 2014. Over the past decade, the festival has featured more than 2,600 free events and activities, reaching over 260,000 people across the UK. 

To celebrate this milestone, and to mark the beginning of its next chapter, the festival is also excited to unveil a revamped logo and branding. The festival has a distinctive and beautiful new look, but remains committed with the same dedication to engaging the public in the best humanities research across the country. 

Read on for a few highlights and themes from this year’s programme. 

Landmark Events 

The Belfast School of Art is celebrating its 175th anniversary with a live art event that will foster creative interaction with the surroundings of the School. Art Lives Here: A Manifesto of Art in Action invites you to get hands-on with an art display that is off the wall and in the centre of things.  

In Birmingham, Breaking Borders will use multimedia art to consider two landmark anniversaries: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the eastern expansion of the European Union in 2004. In Derby, What the Empire Exhibition Left Out will reflect on what the Derby Borough Corporation took to the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924, and ask what stories local people would want to tell today. At the Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds, a night of live music from duo Fado Bicha will celebrate 50 years of the Portuguese Revolution. Meanwhile, in the North East, an exhibition will look back on 20 Years of Facebook and explore the history of taking and sharing photographs. 

Landmark Places 

From the beach front to the city streets, this year’s programme explores a variety of landmark places and spaces. 

In London, one of the most iconic landmarks is the River Thames. The National Archives are celebrating over 700 years of Thames history in their collections, and invite you to explore fascinating records from the river’s murky history.  

In the South West, Punch with a Twist is reinvigorating a seafront classic and presenting a Punch & Judy show like none you have ever seen before. With shows suitable for all the family, plus an adult show for over 18s, this knockabout puppet show has something for everyone.  

The seaside is also the inspiration for a Creative and Craft Workshop in Canterbury. This closed event for people living with dementia will transform a community hall into a sensory seaside setting – complete with ozone and ice cream! 

In Cardiff, it is the city rather than the seaside that is the focus of attention. Retelling the Hidden and Complicated Histories of Cardiff will guide participants through the city, exploring overlooked, marginalised and complicated histories of the Welsh capital. Meanwhile, just over the Severn Bridge in Bristol, a dramatized guided walk will celebrate one of the most important authors of the 20th century: Angela Carter. And in Bath, the Bath Readathon! will celebrate some the literary landmarks and texts of the city in a series of reading sprints and challenges running throughout the festival. 

In Leeds, the Black Flâneurs walking tour and shared meal will invite audiences to remap the cityscape, making visible a network of unnoticed landmarks that tell the story of the city’s Black history, literature and culture.  

And if all that sounds like thirsty work, then look no further than this Sheffield-based event. Pints of Interest: Pubs as Social Landmarks considers the pub as a landmark site of community, socialising, and entertainment. 

Landmark Experiences 

Other events are taking a much more personal look at the festival theme and exploring landmark moments in our lifetimes. 

A workshop in Manchester will explore how items of clothing can be invested with special meaning and memories of important times in our lives. What’s in Your Wardrobe? Telling & Sharing Clothing Stories invites you to bring along items of clothing and share these powerful stories, memories, and connections.  

Other events will explore how we mark moments of loss and grief. Death's Grin: A Night of Shared Stories will explore how people from the medieval period to today conceptualised death and coped with grief through humour, faith and storytelling. And in Edinburgh, Obituaries - Landmarks for Life and Living will see participants writing their own obituaries to consider what it might mean to live in ways we may wish to be remembered. 

In Durham, the Research Cabaret returns with a night of entertainment exploring what makes our life experiences formative, through live music, poetry and dance. In Portsmouth, Queer Perspectives: Redefining Life's Landmarks will explore life’s landmark moments from queer perspectives over a shared meal, while a mark-making workshop in Wolverhampton will delve into the human desire to mark time, celebrate life events, and preserve our stories. 

What will you discover? 

There are many more events and activities taking place across the UK, with a huge variety of ways to get involved.  

Explore the full programme and find out what’s going on in your area. And don’t forget to check our 2024 Festival Hubs, which are running a series of exciting themed events across the country.