Skip to main content
About the Festival
At the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, experience living traditions from around the world. Our goal is to work with communities to strengthen and preserve their cultures and share them with you on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The next Festival is
June 24–28 & July 1 –5, 2020

Looking Ahead

  • Photo by Cristina Diaz-Carrera

    In 2020, we will be back in full form as the Folklife Festival explores how diverse domains of cultural knowledge—from religion to design to science—shape the ways we understand, experience, and respond to ever-changing natural, social, and built environments.

    Programs will include regional representations from Brazil and the United Arab Emirates, alongside the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon and Smithsonian Conservation Commons.

Past Programs
more
  • Colombia: The Nature of Culture
    2011 Festival
    Colombia: The Nature of Culture

    Visitors journeyed through presentations of the rich bio-cultural diversity of Colombia and explored how Colombian cultural expressions are inextricably connected to their distinctive environments.

  • U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
    1993 Festival
    U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

    Based on research in the rich and dynamic living culture of the border, the program provided a glimpse at its histories, diverse communities, local and regional identities, and its music, arts, crafts, healing practices, foodways, and narrative.

  • Forest, Field and Sea: Folklife in Indonesia
    1991 Festival
    Forest, Field and Sea: Folklife in Indonesia

    Communities from three provinces displayed some of the indigenous skills and traditional knowledge that have developed in environments outside the urban centers and fertile river valleys of the Indonesian heartland.

Support the Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, sustainability projects, educational outreach, and more.
Support Folklife. Donate Now.

.