Next month, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, will mark his 92nd year on earth; as part of the programmes lined-up for the event, Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange (WSICE) returns for its 17th edition under a theme whose urgency grows more evident with every passing day. The programme will be held in Lagos and London, bringing together scholars, artists, cultural practitioners, students, policymakers, diaspora communities and global citizens in what has become one of Africa's most enduring yearly conversations on culture, creativity, memory and the future. The conversation continues not as literature, heritage but about humanity itself.
Theme and Significance
This year's theme is more than a slogan. It is a question. A challenge. Perhaps even a warning. Speaking with one of the co-initiators of the project and the chief executive of Zmirage Multimedia Ltd, Alhaji Teju Kareem, “we live in an age when technology travels faster than wisdom. When information crosses oceans in seconds while understanding often remains stranded at the border. When human beings are more connected than at any time in history, yet loneliness, division, suspicion and cultural amnesia continue to expand. The world has become increasingly global.”
Kareem asked, “has it become more humane?” He said that question sits quietly beneath the theme of WSICE 2026, adding:”For centuries, culture has been humanity's most sophisticated passport. Long before modern visas, treaties and airports, music travelled. Stories travelled. Ideas travelled. Languages travelled. Spiritual traditions travelled. Memory travelled. And through them, civilisations encountered one another, challenged one another, enriched one another and, occasionally, transformed one another.”
According to him, culture has always crossed borders, however, “the question is whether it survives the journey.” Kareem continued, “today, migration reshapes nations. Artificial intelligence reshapes communication. Digital platforms reshape identity. Young people increasingly inherit multiple homes, multiple loyalties and multiple narratives. The child born in London may dream in Lagos. The student raised in Lagos may imagine tomorrow in Toronto. The artist in Nairobi may find an audience in New York . The entrepreneur in Accra may build community in Berlin. Humanity itself is becoming more mobile than ever before.
“Yet beneath that movement remains an eternal responsibility: To remember who we are. For roots are not prisons. They are foundations. And culture is not a museum artifact preserved beneath glass. It is a living inheritance. It breathes. It adapts. It travels. It evolves. But it must never disappear.
“This is the conversation WSICE 2026 invites the world to join.”
17 Years of Cultural Exchange
Over 17 years, the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange has grown from a commemorative initiative into a global cultural movement dedicated to nurturing critical thought, creative imagination, cultural literacy, youth empowerment and international dialogue. Inspired by the life and work of Professor Wole Soyinka, the programme continues to champion the values that have defined his intellectual journey: freedom of thought, moral courage, cultural consciousness, social justice and the enduring responsibility of the artist to society.
Activities and Programmes
This year's activities will feature: International Cultural Roundtable, Youth Leadership and Identity Workshops, Theatre and Dramatic Presentations, Literary Conversations, Spoken Word Performances, Music and Cultural Showcases, Diaspora Heritage Dialogues, Academic Exchanges, Visual Arts Exhibitions and Creative Industry Engagements.
A major component of the London programme, hosted in collaboration with The Africa Centre and a network of educational and community partners, will place young people at the centre of the conversation, because every civilisation eventually confronts the same question: What shall be left behind for those who inherit tomorrow? WSICE believes the answer cannot be infrastructure alone. Nor technology alone. Nor economics alone. It must also include memory. Values. Identity. Culture. For without memory, progress loses direction. And without culture, development risks becoming merely efficient displacement.
Reflection and Dialogue
As the world gathers once again around the enduring legacy of Africa's first Nobel Laureate in Literature, WSICE 2026 offers more than celebration. “It offers reflection. It offers dialogue. It offers encounter. And perhaps, in a century increasingly defined by walls, divisions and competing certainties, it offers something even more valuable,” said Kareem. “A reminder that culture remains one of humanity's last great meeting places. Not because it erases difference. But because it teaches us how to live with difference. Across oceans. Across languages. Across generations. Across histories. Across borders.”
