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RAMADAN STREETS
Ramadan Streets, was a 5-day night market celebrating food, art, and community spirit, transforming a Coventry Road car park in Birmingham (March 12-16, 2025). Soul City Arts (SCA), an arts collective, curated this unique cultural experience to powerfully represent their communities and foster togetherness during Ramadan, going beyond a typical food market. In partnership with Birmingham City Council, this souk-like event featured 38 food, craft, and artisan stalls from established national vendors and local businesses. In the daytime school children from schools across Birmingham had fun engaging in art sessions lead by internationally acclaimed Manga graphic novelist Asia Alfasi, and learnt about Manga character techniques and collectively created some banners producing some amazing work. They explored and celebrated the aspects of Ramadan, while in the evenings the event offered communal Iftars.
With a capacity of under 500 people allowed on site at one time, through meticulous site management we welcomed over 30,000 visitors from across the country over a five-day period. For me, it was a heartwarming experience to share this religious month with local people celebrating their faith, welcoming me with open arms. Despite the cold nights families queued for up to two hours to be a part of the experience. While they reflected and took time to be with their friends and families and total strangers, during the excitement and anticipation before entering the space. The collective togetherness and breaking of bread, engaging in prayer, enjoying artisan makers each evening brought a wonderful and wholesome vibe to Coventry Road. People travelled from London, Leicester, Derby, Manchester, also from across the West Midlands to experience this first-time event.
After sunset and the night sky darkened, a film was projected onto the wall of the side of one of the shops, sharing reflections of community members about their experiences of Ramadan during their lives. Wholesome, fun, and personal moments of what it meant to them growing up, a wonderful sentiment and creative element of each evening.
The Soul City Arts team, Halal Food Festival and myself as the event producer worked within a very short time frame to create, organise and host this amazing community event, being the first of its kind in Birmingham. We worked collaboratively with multi-agencies to get all the resources in place to ensure a smooth and safe operation. This was my third time as a senior producer, being anxious about working in the winter due to my chronic health condition, but I had already worked as a zone manager for Birmingham Light Festival and had bought the appropriate weatherproof clothing to protect me from the elements. It was great to co-lead on logistics, licensing, on-site set/clear out, and management of the site, being part of an inclusive and supportive team.