Our cultural programming goes beyond one-off events

We do museum takeovers, festival programmes, exhibitions, and live activations with some of London’s most iconic institutions. Our curation always revolves around community and storytelling.

Here’s some of the magic we’ve made…

Museum takeovers

We turn museum spaces into something people talk about the next day. Live music, workshops, markets, community… full evenings built around stories that deserve a bigger room.

Horniman Museum Lates

We were invited to programme the Horniman's Lates evening for their All Eyes on Her! exhibition. So we packed the museum with live music, film, workshops, DJs, and a market that drew over 1,200 people through the door.

One of their best-attended Lates to date.

Leighton House – After Hours

We hosted a long-table discussion around the question: ‘Who gets to craft?’.

The event uses the private form of a dinner party as a structure for public debate. Intimate, juicy, spicy… with talk as the only course.

Designed in conversation with Kamilah Ahmed's installation at Leighton House titled ‘Facets in Resonance’.

Film festivals

We've worked with festivals as a programming and workshop partners, bringing the communities in conversation with the films, making sure something sticks long after the credits roll…

Safar Film Festival

We built a discussion for SAFAR responding to their programme's themes of ghosts, grief, and memory.

We weaved together theory, cultural reference, and genuine participation.

London Migration Film Festival

As programming partners for LMFF 2025, we ran 12 workshops across four days, covering oral history, storytelling, food heritage, and personal archives.

We brought a diverse array of topics: animating recipes workshop, storytelling events, screening & writing sessions, debates…

London Palestine Film Festival

Some films are so powerful and moving, that you just need to go home and digest them afterwards. Others leave sparks of opinions, questions, ideas.

It’s those ones that we programme discussions and debriefs where audiences get to reflect, learn, and chat about the ideas and themes.

Live programming

From riverside stages to garden parties, we do the full thing. Basically an elevated party where we bring in the vibes: musical artists, DJs, dance performances, community workshops, markets, and community co-curation.

Horniman Museum Summer Party

A true haflah in the gardens: live music at the bandstand, a market of handmade goods and zines, food worth queuing for, drum circles, dance workshops, storytelling, a treasure hunt for the little ones, and calligraphers set up for anyone who wanted to slow down.

A proper summer garden party, SWANA-style.

Southbank Centre’s Riverside Terrace

A two-day takeover of the Southbank's Riverside Terrace with music, comedy, dabke, participatory theatre, a protest songs workshop, and DJ sets.

All this co-curated with a cohort of young curators. Finding your voice, collectively.

Great Exhibition Road Festival

Marking 175 years since the Great Exhibition of 1851 with "the world's greatest showcase of human ingenuity," we asked the obvious question: whose ingenuity?

Over two days at one of London's biggest free festivals, we ran a participatory marquee installation inviting visitors to contribute the stories, crafts, and hidden histories that the original exhibition never made room for. Building a living counter-exhibition, one voice at a time.

Cultural activations

Talks, installations, supper clubs, workshop series… we design activations for galleries, heritage organisations, and public spaces who want to reach people they haven't reached before.

Egypt Exploration Society

We took over the Egypt Exploration Society building for a month, hosting three major events and a photography exhibition throughout.

From a kids-focused day of ancient egyptology and play, to a day of crafts and making, to a supper club where we brought ancient recipes to life… we brought the contemporary and the old in conversation with the London community.

Ibraaz

To complement themes of the exhibitions at Ibraaz, we programmed talks and workshops that brought these works into conversation.

The first explored oral histories and heritage preservation in response to Hrair Sarkissian's work. The second: a workshop on what ‘solidarity’ means from a Global Majority POV.

The Portman Estate

The Portman Estate owns public space at the heart of Edgware Road and in order to bring it to life and engage the local community, we programmed two weekends of activities catered to the neighbourhood.

We know food is the key to bringing people together so we had a FEAST day focusing on the food heritage of the area and a PLAY day for families and kids.

Testimonials

  • Zeina and Al's ability to gather people, ignite critical conversations and host fruitful events is INCOMPARABLE. The quality, professionalism and pride they take in their work makes collaborating with them a joy. From concept to the smallest detail, a true powerhouse.

    Alia, Shubbak Festival

  • Partnering with Hekkayatna to produce a workshop as part of our film festival was a great experience from start to finish. The workshop was warmly and sensitively ran, whilst also being enhanced by interesting theoretical and cultural references.

    Becky, SAFAR Film Festival

  • Their attention to detail and collaborative spirit made the entire process seamless and enjoyable, resulting in an event that was thoughtfully curated with meaningful opportunities for cultural exchange and community connection.

    Yinka, Portman Estate

  • Zeina and the Hekayyatna team are full of energy and creativity - we have really enjoyed collaborating together on the FEAST and PLAY days at Nutford Place

    Ming, Root and Erect

  • You created such a wonderful event – from the engaging question and prompts, to the empathetic and elegant touches like the name badges through to the actual facilitation from the moment people arrived at the doorway to your impeccably well-judged facilitation.

    Charlotte, Leighton House

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