To Name the World: 2026 Arts & Cultural Film Festival

Brought to you by the SSAF

WHEN: April 22 to May 30
WHERE: George Paton Gallery, Rowden White Library, Arts & Cultural Building + more!

To Name the World considers how meaning is shaped through language, gesture, and encounter, where bodies, images, and experiences remain in constant flux. In its 2026 iteration, the Arts and Culture Film Festival unfolds as a deconstructed program of exhibitions, screenings, workshops, and discussions, foregrounding moving image as a site of collective exchange. 

Across the program, woks engage with diasporic identity, political struggle, and the social life of images, tracing how narratives are constructed, circulated, and contested. Through participatory and expanded cinematic practices, the festival brings together relational forms—shared meals, performance, sound, and dialogue—that generate meaning through co-presence, observation, and exchange. To Name the World positions the festival as a space for gathering and negotiation, where worlds are not only represented, but collectively produced and held in common.

See here for the full exhibition, workshop, game and screening program!