The ArtWallah Festival, a multi-disciplinary arts festival of the South Asian diaspora, is seeking innovative and original work from artists and artist-activists that address political, personal, or cultural celebrations / struggles, for its seventh annual event.

Started by a group of artists and community activitists in 1999, ArtWallah is a grassroots initiative responding to the need for a platform of expression and a channel of communication between South Asian diasporic artists and their communities. Since its humble beginnings ArtWallah has grown and continues to do so, attracting larger audiences and an increasing number of participants from all over the world.

ArtWallah allows you to share your work with a diverse audience while also offering you a venue to meet and collaborate with both established and emerging artists. Please join us in Los Angeles, CA June 2006 for a powerful weekend of community building through dance, film, music, literature, theatre, visual/new media arts, and spoken word.

We are very pleased to announce that this year’s festival will take place from June 22-25, at three new venues: We’ll start off the festival on Thursday night at the movies, screening films at one of LA’s best independent cinema houses. On Friday, live bands and DJs will entertain at one of the city’s best music clubs. And on Saturday and Sunday, June 24 and 25, the ArtWallah Festival will be at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, in the heart of Little Tokyo, in Downtown Los Angeles. The JACCC offers an outdoor plaza, a large indoor art gallery, a serene zen garden, many classrooms for workshops and panels, and the state of the art Japan America Theatre.

We encourage you to submit your work to ArtWallah 2006. We strive to showcase established and emerging artists of the highest quality, and seek to include regions that are typically underrepresented in the South Asian geography including Burma, the Maldives, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Please visit http://www.artwallahfestival.org for submission guidelines and application forms.