Manchester International Festival 2025 invited audiences to Dream Differently. From 3 to 20 July 2025, the Festival took over Aviva Studios and spread across the city, welcoming artists and audiences from around the world to share bold new ideas, powerful stories and joyful moments of connection.

The Festival opened with THE HERDS, a stampede of life-sized animal puppets roaming through the streets of Manchester, Rochdale and Wigan. At Aviva Studios, Football City, Art United. brought together 11 new artist-footballer collaborations in an ambitious and playful group exhibition and choreographer Jonathan Watkins reimagined Christopher Isherwood’s novel A Single Man as a contemporary ballet.

Audiences were invited to explore the city’s public spaces and cultural venues through striking exhibitions like An Inheritance – curated by the children of Greater Manchester – Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge, the artist’s first international solo show. At the Royal Exchange Theatre, Liberation brought to the stage a new play about the private lives of Africa’s liberation figures while FALE SĀ / SACRED HOUSE at HOME offered a powerful meditation on Pacific identity and storytelling through digital art and ceremonial practice.

Throughout the Festival, music pulsed through Manchester. At Bridgewater Hall and Aviva Studios, Sounds of the East and Ruhaniyat blended orchestral traditions with global sounds, while Surround Sounds, Mary Anne Hobbs & Anna Phoebe, and Everything is Recorded delivered unforgettable one-off live experiences.

A strong thread of community and collaboration ran through the Festival. Balmy Army x Balmy Ukraine returned to champion youth-led mental health activism. Venture Arts brought new projects to life, including a residency with Michael Beard and live collaborative performances. Germaine Kruip: A Possibility transformed the theatre into a space of illusion and possibility, while Juliet Ellis’ A Symphony of Flesh and Bones offered an immersive, dreamlike meditation on the sense of self.

Blackhaine stunned audiences at Diecast with And Now I Know What Love Is, a raw new performance work blending dance, music and personal testimony. Meanwhile, Shilpa Gupta: You are the place gave voice to diverse communities through an evocative sound installation in Rochdale.

With hundreds of artists, dozens of free events and thousands of visitors, MIF25 was a celebration of what happens when we come together to imagine differently, boldly, and collectively.

What did you discover when you Dreamed Differently?