Dreaming differently

We live in challenging and strange times when hope, joy and wonder seem to exist more as distant memory than in the present and we attempt to navigate a global landscape that is transforming at an unprecedented pace.

In a recent conversation with New York-based artist Kaneza Schaal for Factory International’s Artists in Times of Upheaval series, she reminded me that, as artists, subversion is our superpower.

So perhaps it is precisely in times like these that we must lean into the unimaginable, the unknowable and the unthinkable to find that in the private conversations, in the reimagined assemblies, we can discover our re-enchantment with life and living that dreaming allows.

A global incubator

Every two years, Manchester transforms into the Manchester International Festival (MIF). Produced by Factory International, MIF is a global hub of creative innovation that invites extraordinary artists from the North West, alongside some of the most exciting creative minds from all over the world, to Manchester to embark on ambitious, unexpected and joyful collaborations.

It is a global incubator in which these partnerships have produced cutting-edge artworks that speak directly to the world around us, that defy genres and that have challenged, changed and burst through barriers of people’s preconceptions, leaving a lasting impact on those who experienced them.

Made in Manchester, many go on to be witnessed and experienced by audiences all over the world – a cultural exchange that has been taking place since 2007. MIF sits within the broader year-round work of Factory International which collaborates with venues, festivals and companies around the world to produce and premiere major new work that is international in spirit and practice, at its new HQ Aviva Studios.

10th edition of the festival

This year marks the 10th edition of the festival, and my first as creative director. MIF is a festival known for broadcasting a visionary and bold take on what our future could look like. It creates a space for audiences and artists alike to dream, to imagine the futures we want to be part of, bringing the possibility of them to life through the artworks it commissions.

This year, we’re inviting audiences to Dream Differently. A journey that began with conversations about the unknown and unknowable with a hugely diverse range of artists that invite us to envision new possibilities, utopian spaces and proposals of futures beyond our current conditions.

This collection of artists and commissions challenge us to see beyond the familiar, to resist the hegemony of our present experience, to transcend the narratives of multipolar traps. They remind us that, more than ever, it is critical that we hold firm to our belief in community.

We are witnessing our communities – locally, nationally and internationally – becoming increasingly fractured, and we need to preserve and build spaces where connections can continue to be cultivated and forged. Through the creation and presentation of an artwork, a dialogue is cultivated between artist and audience, an exchange of ideas, memories, stories and history.

A historic gift for children of the future

As part of MIF 25, audiences will enter into a dialogue with Peruvian artist Santiago Yahuarcani, the leader of the Aimeni (White Heron) clan of the Uitoto people; with queer art collective FAFSWAG from south Auckland; with acclaimed multi-disciplinary artist Tom Hayes (aka Blackhaine); with footballers Ella Toon and Eric Cantona as they collaborate with artists Ryan Gander and  Keikin to expand the worlds of art and football; and with over 100 primary school children from schools all across Greater Manchester as they prepare a historic gift for children 100 years into the future.

We are a global society and our practice as artists is heavily limited if we rely on just our own cultural context, our own lived experience and shy away from collaborating across borders, languages and cultures.

When we speak of collaboration and community building it is not and cannot just be limited to the creation of major works for our stages, we must invest in the construction of wider networks to support and facilitate the sharing and developing of ideas, skills, projects and training with our peers locally, nationally and internationally.

This is something that sits at the heart of MIF and the year-round work of Factory International, through artist residencies and programmes such as the International Producers Training which we’ve run since 2018, and the new programme to develop Future Global Leaders in the sector – a partnership with the British Council.

Protecting spaces for dialogue

At the same time, we celebrate the extraordinary diversity and depth of our local context with hundreds of artists from Manchester performing on our Festival Square stages, and artists supported by the Manchester Independents network showcasing their work to promoters and presenters from all around the world.

Through expanding the community you are part of, you can open your mind in ways that are hard to imagine. There is so much we can learn, so much that may at first seem unfamiliar, distant and removed from our own experiences and yet there is always a shared communality that we all understand – emotions, meaning that are very close to our heart.

I see my role as creative director of this festival to insist that we protect these spaces for dialogue, spaces that facilitate dreaming, because the moment we lose that, we lose all possibilities of anything else beyond what we do or know right now.