In 2026, we welcomed the Voiced Festival of Endangered Languages to Manchester as part of our International Mother Language Day Celebrations.

Voiced Festival celebrated writers and artists making work in endangered languages and dialects. Through poetry, performance, talks, live events and visual art, the festival brought together a remarkable line up of artists whose work marks the vast impact that art has on language and language has on art.

Voiced was the first UK creative festival to celebrate the linguistic vitality of countries around the world, as well as the endangered languages and dialects that continue to thrive within the UK.

The festival was co-curated by Sam Winston, an artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores language not only as a carrier of messages but also as a visual form in and of itself, and Chris McCabe, a poet, novelist, artist and Head of the National Poetry Library.

Voiced included the ‘Seed Syllable’ exhibition at Manchester School of Art’s Holden Gallery – a display of five new poems and striking visual art – and ‘No Tongues Left to Chant‘, a digital exhibition of poetry and works of literature in languages on the UNESCO vulnerable and endangered list.

A new collaborative multilingual poem was also created in a project led by Afrocats and Manchester Poetry Library. The poem can be downloaded below, with visual art designed by Akshita Venugopal.