55th Annual Northwest Folklife Festival "UBUNTU" Solidarity, Joy, Liberation

May 22-25, 2026

“I am because we are” is the basic translation of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is about belonging. That we belong to each other because our personhood is connected to the personhood of someone else.

A loved one. A friend. A neighbor. A stranger.

Our humanity is rooted in the relationships that we hold with people. People that we have both met and not met–consciously, subconsciously, and unconsciously. It is a testament to the undeniable fact that we are tethered to each other, whether we know them or not. That an action or an encounter can have a ripple effect on our immediate time and place, as well as somewhere halfway across the world.

While this year’s Cultural Focus explores how we co-exist in this world, as the last part of our series, it also underscores the journey that people take to reach that co-existence. The nonmonolithic nature of our personhood means that our journeys can be intertwined and can also be separate.

Our path to ubuntu isn’t a linear one. It’s a passageway of change and transition, cause and effect (Metamorphosis). A journey that keeps us on our toes in an ever changing landscape (Lagom). A wandering for the belief that our hopes can feed our dreams (Meraki). A pilgrimage that strengthens our resolve and honors our convictions (Ikigai). These are paths that we all take at various and multiple times in our lives.

Ubuntu is the result of an audacity to believe that we are part of something bigger than just ourselves. Change, balance, passion, and purpose are all lessons towards an endgame that is both simpler and more complex that we ever imagined. That FOLK is where it starts and where it ends.