New exhibitions, site-specific installations and performance pieces were announced today as part of the visual arts programme for Manchester International Festival 2025. Michael Beard, FAFSWAG, Ryan Gander, Shilpa Gupta, Germaine Kruip, Rose Wylie and Santiago Yahuarcani were among artists announced for the festival, which takes place across the city from 3rd – 20th July 2025.
Working with both regional and international partners, the wide-ranging programme of original new work from artists around the world will take place in venues throughout the city, including Aviva Studios, The Whitworth, Manchester Art Gallery, HOME and spaces across Rochdale.
A highlight of this year’s festival is Football City, Art United. (4 July – 24 August 2025), an ambitious group exhibition at Aviva Studios which pairs 11 artists and footballs to create new artwork. The project is a collaboration between World Cup and Champions’ League winner Juan Mata, renowned curator and Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and writer, filmmaker and curator Josh Willdigg. From interactive play arenas and sound installations to animation and sculpture, Football City, Art United. expands the worlds of art and football and the cultural contributions both make to our daily lives.
The visual arts programme for MIF25 will also include: the first international solo exhibition of work by artist and Indigenous activist Santiago Yahuarcani; a site-specific sound installation by Shilpa Gupta; an exhibition put together by over 450 primary school children; the pop-up open studio of artist Michael Beard; and a celebration of queer Indigenous culture, the outcome of a two-year artistic residency by artist collective FAFSWAG.
Low Kee Hong, Creative Director of Factory International and MIF, said:
“It has been an incredible journey building the MIF25 programme with such a diverse range of artists from around the world whose voices are ever more critical in these challenging times. They encourage us to lean into visions of other possible futures, encounter cosmologies unfamiliar to our own, and enter into worlds that propose a reenchantment of dreaming to rediscover our ability for joy, hope and belief in each other and our communities to build these tomorrows we want to be part of.”
Tickets for MIF25 are on sale to Factory International members from today 11th March and on general sale 10am 19th March.
Programme Listings:
An Inheritance, Beckie Darlington, Andy Field and Rosabel Tan, Manchester Art Gallery 4th July – 2nd November 2025
An Inheritance brings together a sprawling collection of objects, information, advice and jokes from over 450 local primary school children. Working with artists Beckie Darlington, Andy Field and Rosabel Tan, these young people have been thinking about Manchester 100 years from now and what they can leave behind for its children – from a jar of honey (in case there are no bees in 2125) to advice on how to make friends, and everything in between. At the end of summer 2025 the collection will be safeguarded with the aim of being presented again in a hundred years.
FAFSWAG: Fale SA / Sacred House HOME 4th July – 10th August 2025
A celebration of queer Indigenous culture, FALE SA / SACRED HOUSE will take audiences on a cultural journey into the realm of Pacific storytelling. Over the course of a two-year artistic residency, artists from the FAFSWAG collective were invited to create a ceremonial house inhabited by ancestral stories from the Pacific Diaspora of Aotearoa New Zealand and the wider Moana. The resulting work as part of MIF25 responds to the reality that home is a precarious notion for cultures in a constant state of motion and displacement. The presentation at HOME encompasses a digital art exhibition, cultural ceremony, a programme of indigenous cinema and a series of talks and public discussions.
Football City, Art United. Juan Mata, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Josh Willdigg 4th July – 24th August 2025
An ambitious group exhibition at Aviva Studios which pairs 11 artists and footballs to create new artwork. The project is a collaboration between World Cup and Champions’ League winner Juan Mata, renowned curator and Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and writer, filmmaker and curator Josh Willdigg. From interactive play arenas and sound installations to animation and sculpture, Football City, Art United. expands the worlds of art and football and the cultural contributions both make to our daily lives.
The artists and footballers include: Alvaro Barrington and Raí; Ryan Gander and Eric Cantona; Keiken and Ella Toone; Suzanne Lacy and Vivianne Miedema; Jill Mulleady and Diego Maradona; Paul Pfeiffer and Edgar Davids; Bárbara Sánchez-Kane and Jorge Campos; and Rose Wylie and Lotte Wubben-Moy.
Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge The Whitworth, University of Manchester, 4th July 2025 – 4th January 2026
The first international solo exhibition of works by Santiago Yahuarcani – artist, Indigenous activist and leader of the Aimeni (White Heron) clan of the Uitoto people. Working from a remote Amazonia town in northern Peru, Santiago Yahuarcani creates large-scale, narrative rich paintings exploring the relationship between the Uitoto people and the natural world using natural pigments and materials. The Beginning of Knowledge features more than 25 paintings from 2010 to the present, including new work.
Shilpa Gupta: Untitled R-KIX Performance Centre, Rochdale 4th – 20th July 2025
For MIF25, Mumbai-based artist Shilpa Gupta has worked with different local community groups to collect stories and explore the themes of absence, longing, belonging and hope. Created in partnership with Rochdale Development Agency, the work culminates in a sound installation using a series of singing microphones at a venue in Rochdale during MIF25.
Venture Arts: Michael Beard Michael Beard, Company Chameleon and Manchester Camerata The Lab, Aviva Studios 4th – 20th July 2025
Venture Arts – the award-winning organisation working with neurodivergent and learning-disabled artists in Manchester – presents Venture Arts: Michael Beard, a pop-up open studio for MIF25. Local artist Michael Beard will be in residence and create new large-scale work throughout the festival. On select days, The Lab will transform into a performance space and audiences will be able to see Beard, dancers from Company Chameleon and chamber musicians from Manchester Camerata respond to each other’s work.
A Possibility, Germaine Kruip, Emily Howard and Hahn Rowe, Royal Northern College of Music 17th – 20th July 2025
The Royal Northern College of Music will play host to a new artwork by Germaine Kruip. Part sculptural installation, part soundscape, part immersive experience, A Possibility features music by Emily Howard and Hahn Rowe performed by percussionists using Kruip’s specially made brass sculptures. The piece invites audiences to transcend the immediate and explore a world of infinite possibilities.
