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ESEA Heritage Month 2026: London Events, What It Means & How to Get Involved
- NOVA ESEA
- 1 day ago
- 10 min read
September is ESEA Heritage Month, and the 2026 theme is Evolving Threads. besea.n's official programme has over 40 events across the UK this year, more than 30 of them in London, from a three-day Southeast Asian food festival at Battersea Power Station to dumpling-making on a Lewisham high street, an 18+ rave in Stoke Newington, four different walking tours of London's Chinese history, and library story times in Mandarin and English.
Here's what ESEA Heritage Month actually is, the full London calendar, and how to get your own event on it, including the grant that will pay for it.
What Is ESEA Heritage Month?
ESEA Heritage Month runs every September and was started in 2021 by besea.n, a grassroots organisation set up to challenge discrimination against East and South East Asian communities in the UK. It's a collaborative programme rather than a top-down one: anyone can register an event, and the month is built from whatever the community puts into it. besea.n runs some events itself, but most are organised by community groups, artists, libraries and individuals who submitted them to the calendar.
The point was never just visibility for its own sake. As besea.n's Amy Phung put it when the first month launched, “without the prioritisation of ESEA voices in how our culture is portrayed, harmful narratives are perpetuated around who we are.” East and South East Asia covers 48 countries. One month can't represent that, but it can hand the microphone over.
The 2026 Theme: Evolving Threads
This year's theme, Evolving Threads, is about how stories, actions and solidarities get woven together across time, place and community. You can see it in the programme: Threads of Home in Oxford, Critical Threads, Threads Around the Table in Edinburgh, Threads of Resistance in London, and a whole event in Lewisham that just took the theme as its name.
A quick note from us: we like this one more than most heritage-month themes because “threads” makes room for the fact that ESEA identity in Britain isn't a single inherited object passed down intact. It's something being made and remade, by second-generation kids reverse-engineering their grandmother's recipes, by Vietnamese and Chinese and Filipino organisers who only started calling themselves one community fairly recently, by people who arrived last year and people whose families have been in Limehouse for a century. The word that does the heavy lifting is “evolving”, and it's a useful reminder that heritage isn't only something you preserve. It's also something you're currently building, slightly badly, in real time.
The Big Ones: London Highlights
celebrASIA 2026
📅 11–13 September 2026 | Battersea Power Station
The biggest one on the calendar, and back for its largest edition yet. Three days of Southeast Asian street food, an artisan market in the Turbine Halls, main stage performances, and workshops covering batik painting, bamboo weaving, pewter work and candle making. The Grand Tour passport experience adds Timor-Leste for the first time this year, bringing it to 11 countries.
Entry to the festival, market, food stalls and stage is free. Workshops and panel discussions need booking in advance.
Evolving Threads: Food, Flowers and Conversations
📅 Sunday 20 September 2026, 12pm–3pm | Zhu Lin Hidden Village, Lewisham SE13 5JH
Named after the month's theme, and run by EasyStepUK. You make Chinese dumplings, learn what Vietnamese spring rolls actually mean to the people who grew up on them, do some East Asian flower arranging, and talk to strangers. Free, but registration is required.
This is the one we'd push people toward if they're new to any of this. Big festivals are easy to attend anonymously; three hours around a table folding dumplings with people you don't know is where the “community” part of community event stops being a word on a poster. It's also genuinely low-stakes: no prior experience, step-free venue, seating throughout, and you leave having actually spoken to someone.
They're also after volunteers for registration, workshops, setup and photography, with no experience needed and certificates available.
Margins United Festival 2026
📅 Saturday 26 September 2026, 3pm–4am | Club 360, N16 7DX | 18+
The loud end of the month. Margins United is FORM and Eastern Margins' celebration of alternative East and South-East Asian culture, split into two ticketed phases: a day stage from 3pm with 16+ performers including YVES, F5VE and THE DEEP plus the Eternal Market for vintage, tattoos and food, then the Redline Rave from 11:30pm to 4am with KIMJ, RUI and Amanda Sze. Bundle tickets cover both.
Mid Autumn Festival 2026 – Lễ Hội Trung Thu
📅 Sunday 27 September 2026, 12pm–4pm | Deptford Lounge, SE8 4RH
The Vietnamese Family Partnership's annual Mid-Autumn celebration: lion dance, mooncakes, performances, free entry, everyone welcome. Mid-Autumn itself falls on 25 September 2026, so this lands on the weekend right after. There are lantern-making and craft workshops on 10, 17 and 24 September at Evelyn Community Centre in the run-up.
SALO SALO: Come Together
📅 2–7 September 2026 | OXO Tower Wharf, SE1 | Free
A free immersive exhibition looking at the British home through a Filipino lens, from Voice ESEA LDN and ECHO. Six days at OXO Tower, no ticket needed, and one of the few things on the programme where you can walk in off the South Bank and find yourself standing in someone else's front room.
London Mid-Autumn Fair 2026 倫敦中秋聚
📅 5–6 September 2026, 11am–5pm | Goldsmiths, University of London, SE14 6NW
Urban Garden Fair's biggest event of the year: over 80 stalls, lantern riddles, cultural workshops and a lucky draw, across a full weekend at Goldsmiths. £2 pre-sale, £3.80 on the door, which makes it the best-value day out on the September calendar. Go early on the Saturday, because the good stalls sell through.
OFFSHOOTS FESTIVAL
📅 6–27 September 2026 | London
A three-week festival running across most of the month, programmed around LGBTQ+ ESEA communities, with family-friendly daytime events and 18+ evening ones. The longest run on the calendar and worth checking the individual listings rather than treating it as one event.
Walking Tours: Four Ways Into London's Chinese History
An unusually strong year for this. If you only do one thing in September, make it one of these.
BCS: Angel to Limehouse Walk & Old Chinatown Exhibition
📅 Saturday 5 September 2026, 11am–2pm | Free
Three hours from Angel down to Limehouse, paired with an exhibition on the old Chinatown, run by the British Chinese Society. Free, and it books out.
Limehouse: London's Lost Chinatown
📅 Sunday 20 September 2026, 10:30am–1:30pm | Limehouse E14 | Family friendly
Andrew Humphrey's walk, and the deepest dive of the four. Before Gerrard Street there was Limehouse. From the late 1800s, Chinese sailors working the Blue Funnel Line settled around Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields and built London's first Chinatown, with its own boarding houses, laundries, grocers and restaurants. Wartime bombing and post-war slum clearance took most of it, and the community that survived moved west to Soho in the 1950s.
The walk covers what's left and what was lost, including the pulp fiction and press panic that turned the area into a national opium myth it never deserved. Andrew also runs a version in collaboration with St Anne's Limehouse.
Worth doing at any time of year, but it lands differently in September. Most of ESEA Heritage Month is about what the community is doing now. This one is about how long it's been here.
Chinatown Stories: A Community-Led Walking Tour
📅 Sunday 27 September 2026, 11:30am–1pm | Chinatown, W1D 6JA
Chinatown Collective's tour, led by volunteer History Champions, in a Heritage Month edition. Migration, family businesses, the first Michelin-starred Chinese chef in the UK, and the racism and prejudice that sit alongside all of it. Available in English, Cantonese and Mandarin for groups of two or more, and ticket proceeds go to Chinatown charities.
Enjoying this list? NOVA ESEA rounds up what’s on across the city every two weeks — events, new openings, and where to eat. Subscribe free →
The Full London Calendar
Everything on besea.n's official #ESEAHM26 programme in London, plus the Lewisham Council listings that run alongside it. Book through the official calendar, where each entry links to its own ticket page.
Late August into week one
7 Aug – 5 Sept — Kawan! Kawan!: Exhibition Closing Party. Free
1 Sept, 19:00–22:00 — Lily Pond Scratch Night. Free
2–7 Sept — SALO SALO: Come Together, the British home through a Filipino lens, OXO Tower. Free, family friendly
3 Sept, 14:00–16:00 — A Taste of Home: Heritage in Every Pour. Free
3 Sept, 18:00–20:00 — ESEA Film Screening x Poetry Reading by Helen Bowell. Free, LGBTQ+
5–6 Sept — London Mid-Autumn Fair 2026, Goldsmiths, 11:00–17:00. £2 pre-sale, family friendly
5 Sept, 10:30–11:30 — ESEA Heritage Month Arts and Craft Club. Free, family friendly
5 Sept, 11:00–14:00 — BCS: Angel to Limehouse Walk & Old Chinatown Exhibition. Free
5 Sept, 11:30–12:00 — Kamishibai: Japanese Paper Theatre Storytelling. Free, family friendly
5, 12, 19 Sept — Everyday Japan Workshop Series, Downham Library. Rouge 28 Theatre
6 Sept, 11:00–16:00 — BCS Chinese Labour Corps Talk & Gallery Exhibition. Free, family friendly
6–27 Sept — OFFSHOOTS FESTIVAL. LGBTQ+, mixed ages, some 18+
Mid-September
10 Sept, 18:00–20:00 — ESEA Film Screening x Poetry Reading by yuwei 魚尾. Free
10, 17, 24 Sept, 11:00–13:00 — Tết Trung Thu Workshops, Evelyn Community Centre. Free
11–13 Sept — celebrASIA 2026, Battersea Power Station. Free entry
12 Sept, 10:30–12:30 — Uchiwa Making: Japanese Paper Fan Decoration. Free, family friendly
12 Sept, 14:00–16:30 — Our Play Isn't Over Yet: Hong Kong performance & heritage. Free, in Cantonese
17 Sept, 18:00–20:00 — ESEA Film Screening x Poetry Reading. Free
19 Sept, 10:30–12:30 — E-Tegami: Japanese Picture Postcards. Free, family friendly
19 Sept, 13:00–21:00 — The BIG FAT BBQ Fundraiser 2026. LGBTQ+, some 18+
19 Sept, 14:45–16:15 — From Silence to Song: Reclaiming voice after harm. 18+
20 Sept, 10:30–13:30 — Limehouse: London's Lost Chinatown walk. Family friendly
20 Sept, 12:00–15:00 — Evolving Threads: Food, Flowers and Conversations. Free, Lewisham
20 Sept, 14:00–18:00 — Threads of Resistance: ESEA Activism and Solidarity. Free, LGBTQ+
20 Sept, 14:00–17:00 — 2026 Moon Gathering
20 Sept, 14:00–15:00 — BCS Chinese Swordplay Class 剑术. 18+
The final week
25 Sept, 18:30–21:00 — The Red Thread Live: Modern Weddings, Timeless Traditions
25 & 26 Sept — All Shall Be Well, Suk Suk: a Ray Yeung Mini-Series. LGBTQ+
26 Sept, 10:30–14:00 — Lewisham Libraries' ESEA Heritage Month Grand Finale. Free, family friendly
26 Sept, 11:00–13:00 — Tea & Tomorrow: Imagining Diasporic Futures. Free
26 Sept, 15:00–19:00 — Film, Food and Conversations, Art Hub Studios New Cross. JIUN Collective
26 Sept, 15:00–04:00 — Margins United Festival, Club 360. 18+, ticketed
27 Sept, 11:00–13:30 — Chinese in London Walking Tour. Family friendly
27 Sept, 11:30–13:00 — Chinatown Stories: community-led walking tour. Family friendly
27 Sept, 12:00–16:00 — Mid Autumn Festival / Lễ Hội Trung Thu, Deptford Lounge. Free, family friendly
27 Sept, 15:00–16:00 — Talk: Early Chinese Buddhist Statues
30 Sept — South East Asian Cultural Day, Parkside Greenwich. Lewisham Local
Various dates — Calico Libraries: bilingual story times, papercutting. Free, four Lewisham libraries
4 Oct, 13:30–17:00 — BCS Mahjong Club. Family friendly, some 18+
Beyond London
The programme runs UK-wide, and a few outside London are worth the trip:
Threads of Home, Oxford, 1–30 September, free
Threads Around the Table, Edinburgh, 1 September, 16:00–18:00
Manchester Mahjong Music Club, 1 September, 17:00–19:00, free
Critical Threads, St John's College, Oxford, 3–13 September, free. A contemporary textile art exhibition funded by besea.n
Unravelling, Manchester, 4–26 September, free
Kirigami & Tea, the beginning of 白露 White Dew, Ely, 5 September, 18+
ESEA Outdoors UK Scotland walk: Kinnoull Hill, Perth, 5 September, free
How to Get Involved
Donate. If you're not organising anything, the Ko-fi is the direct line between your money and someone else's community event actually happening.
Volunteer. Evolving Threads and the Vietnamese Family Partnership's Mid-Autumn festival are both actively recruiting. September runs almost entirely on people who said yes to a form.
Support it at work. If your employer marks Black History Month and Pride but has never heard of this one, September is a reasonable time to mention it. A lunch, a talk, a reading list.
Just turn up. More than half the London programme is free.
FAQ: ESEA Heritage Month
When is ESEA Heritage Month?
The whole of September, every year. 2026 runs 1–30 September, with a few events spilling into late August and early October.
What does ESEA stand for?
East and South East Asian. It covers 48 countries, from China, Japan and Korea through to Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Timor-Leste.
Who started ESEA Heritage Month?
besea.n launched the first one in September 2021. It's grassroots and community-programmed rather than government-run. besea.n is a registered CIC in England and Wales.
What's the 2026 theme?
Evolving Threads: how stories, actions and solidarities are woven together across time, place and community.
Are the events free?
Most are. celebrASIA is free to enter with paid workshops, the Lewisham community events, library sessions, film screenings and most of the craft workshops are free, and Margins United is the main ticketed one.
Does besea.n fund the events?
Some of them. The Peiwen Legacy Fund gives grants of £50 to £500 to grassroots organisers on the official programme, financed by community donations rather than corporate sponsorship. Events not run by besea.n are organised and managed independently, and besea.n asks that enquiries go to the organisers directly.
Where was London's first Chinatown?
Limehouse, in Tower Hamlets, from the late 1800s. Chinese sailors working the Blue Funnel shipping line settled around Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields. Bombing during the Blitz and post-war slum clearance destroyed most of it, and the community relocated to Soho's Gerrard Street in the 1950s. Andrew Humphrey's Limehouse walk on 20 September covers the whole story.
How do I add my event to the calendar?
Submit it through the register page on the official ESEA Heritage Month site. Anyone organising anything can do it, and if you need money to make it happen, apply to the Peiwen Legacy Fund at the same time.
We'll keep this updated as more September events are confirmed. Spotted something missing? Let us know.
For everything else happening across London year-round, see our What's On guide.
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