2025
The information about the Walk The Block Art Festival was reposted from the Wa Na Wari Facebook Page, please visit the website for more detailed information, buy a ticket or contribute to this program.
Thank-You!
Wa Na Wari is pleased to announce the return of Walk the Block, its signature art and culture festival that transforms Seattle’s Central District into a vibrant celebration of Black creativity, resilience, and community.
This year’s event unfolds in two parts and begins with a 4-week virtual Institute launching on August 8 focused on building with and uplifting legacy community members. The Institute is followed a week later by a one-day public culminating event on September 27th!
This year’s theme, Gratitude, honors thankfulness as a living practice - not simply a gesture, but as a way of being. This year’s theme serves as an invitation to tend to the land, care for one another, and carry forward the legacy of those who came before.
In alignment with Wa Na Wari’s mission, Walk the Block 2025 channels this spirit through art, music, and performance, encouraging the community to engage gratitude as a form of stewardship.
Returning this year to offer an even more in-depth and immersive experience, Wa Na Wari welcomes both local and national artists to build upon the foundation of past seasons and continue the tradition.
“Throughout the year we are constantly collaborating with the most incredible artists, thinkers, oral historians, small businesses, cultural workers and community organizers in our various program areas.
Walk the Block is our way of bringing all of this creative energy together. We are celebrating those collaborations in a way that makes what we do accessible and exciting for everyone, especially those who don’t come to Wa Na Wari on a regular basis,” says Inye Wokoma, Wa Na Wari Co-Founder. With this goal in mind, Wa Na Wari builds on this tradition by integrating a dynamic mix of visual art, sound, performance, and community engagement in a neighborhood-wide format.
This year’s event will feature a wide-range of artists who reflect the theme while invoking cultural memory and intentional reflection - bringing current cultural topics and themes to center. Wa Na Wari Co-Founder, Elisheba Johnson shares, “At a time when arts funding is being cut and cultural spaces are under threat, this festival asserts that art is essential to community life.
For Wa Na Wari, it’s about honoring legacy, celebrating joy, and creating space where Black artists and neighbors are seen, heard, and valued. This is how we preserve culture and shape the future.”
Learn more about the artists at www.wanawari.org/events.
This multidisciplinary approach allows Wa Na Wari’s Walk the Block to foster deeper dialogue and engagement, creating a celebratory yet critically conscious environment rooted in the rich cultural legacy the Central District and Seattle has long been known for. Through Walk the Block, Wa Na Wari reclaims space and uplifts the rich legacy of Black artistry that continues to shape and build the landscape of Seattle.
Walk the Block Community Event | Saturday, September 27 from 2PM - 6PM
Location | Registration is on the rooftop of Medgar Evers pool located at 500 23rd Ave, Seattle, WA 98122
Online Registration | bit.ly/walktheblock2025 Event Details | www.wanawari.org
About Wa Na Wari | Sited in a fifth-generation, Black-owned home, Wa Na Wari is an immersive community art project that reclaims Black cultural space and makes a statement about the importance of Black land ownership in gentrified communities. Our mission is to create space for Black ownership, possibility, and belonging through art, historic preservation, and connection.
Referred to as a "container for Black joy,” Wa Na Wari incubates and amplifies Black art and belonging while providing a safe space for organizing and movement building. By renting a house from a vulnerable Black homeowner, and giving that space back to the Black community, Wa Na Wari is an active model for how Black art and culture can combat gentrification and displacement.
About Walk the Block Institute Walk the Block Institute invites our community to explore strategies for creative community building. Each year Walk the Block Institute is presented by a different Wa Na Wari program, reflecting its unique character and focus.
This year our art program has curated a group of Black filmmakers to share their work and reflect on their roles as observers, narrators, futurists, and thought provocateurs in social movements. More about Walk the Block | Learn more about Walk the Block at www.wanawari.org/events
WALK THE BLOCK 2025!
