WELCOME TO ICAF ’26
From 25–29 March 2026, Rotterdam becomes a shared space for artists, communities, and audiences from around the world. Through performances, workshops, conversations and participatory projects, ICAF explores how art can create connection, foster empathy, and open up space for collective imagination.
This 10th edition of ICAF, under the theme “Space for Imagination,” invites us to consider how we can continue to create room for encounter, reflection, and collaboration in times when both physical and mental space are increasingly under pressure.
Registration to attend ICAF 2026 will open soon.
We warmly invite you to join us and become part of this collective space for imagination.
👉 Registration opens soon
Read the full ICAF 2026 programme here!
News
Introducing Will Weigler: ICAF’23 Rapporteur
[Will’s Blog 1. March 29] And so it begins—The International Community Arts Festival 2023! In March of 2020, a certain uncertainty that was unfolding around the planet meant that Edition 8 of the festival could not be the traditional full-on gathering of artists coming to Rotterdam. Nevertheless, our intrepid crew of producers managed, as we…
Will Weigler ICAF Blog 6: Rhizome
In the festival programme, the description of events scheduled for our final day together includes a passage that eloquently captures the spirit and purpose of ICAF. “Over the past four days – and if we count the residency projects, much longer – we have been exploring sounds of change rising from many different community arts…
Will Weigler ICAF Blog 5: Meeting
The idea of “meeting” is at the core of all the work we do as community artists. Here at the festival, we are meeting with one another in every sense of the word. Over the course of the past few days, some of us have been meeting others for very first time, and also meeting…
Will Weigler ICAF Blog 4: The Thing Itself
The work of community artists is inherently diverse and in a perpetual state of change. We continue to explore, refine, and reinvent this calling that draws us all together across our differences and geographies. Our theme this year at ICAF is The Sound of Change. Even within the simplicity of these words, there room for…
Will Weigler ICAF Blog 3: The Stories We Tell
ICAF Blog 3, Thursday 31 March, 2023 The stories we tell In one of the afternoon workshop sessions, Catherine Koekoek of Rotterdam Wijktheater read aloud a short passage from Adriana Cavarero’s book, Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. Caverero is writing about what she considers to be one of the most beautiful scenes in The Odyssey.…
Will Weigler ICAF Blog 2: ICAF 2023 Opening Evening
Blog 2 Opening evening March 29, 2023 If you have ever played a part in creating a theatre production, you will know that it’s always a challenge to work out just how your show should start. In those opening moments, what can the performers do that will artfully draw a multitude of individual spectators into…
HIGHLIGHT ICAF’23: Take Away Art Packs from Athens Comics Library, Greece:
Over the course of the Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings of ICAF, we warmly welcome Athens Comics Library/Comicdom Press to facilitate a series of workshops where you can create your own Take Away Art Pack, which will be opened and shared with the children of the IJsselmonde Neighborhood, where ICAF has its headquarters, during our Saturday family day. The…
HIGH LIGHT ICAF’23: Dançando com a Diferença, Portugal
For ICAF 2023 Dançando com a Diferença will be bringing their latest work, “GABO”, a children’s and family show where differences are highlighted so that young people and children can make their own interpretation of the way certain communities are treated within society. The name of the show, GABO, is also the name of the puppet who, like…
HIGHLIGHT ICAF’23: Fanfakids, Met X, Belgium
Fanfakids are group of youngsters from Brussels, ranging from 6-16 years in age, who transform their youthful energy into explosive concoctions of rhythms that combine a metropolitan mix of dance and music and will turn the city up to full volume, and get everyone, of all ages, moving and dancing. We are overjoyed to have them…