When we were first developing the programme for our new venue, a constant question we asked ourselves was how we would respond to crisis. Much of the work that Factory International produces, both for Aviva Studios and for Manchester International Festival, is years in the making: the result of long, hard work by artists, and a careful process of nurturing and support from the FI team. This can often, nonetheless, result in work that feels very much of-the-moment, as when Free Your Mind (which was over four years in development) with its AI thematics, landed right at the peak of our AI obsessions and panic. However, there are also times when a new emergency arises unexpectedly, and society’s focus necessarily shifts. As arts producers we need to be flexible and fast enough to respond in these situations – and to support the kinds of reflection and unexpected perspectives that only art and culture can provide.

So, while we have already announced a series of significant and long-in-the-making shows for 2024 at Aviva Studios, we have also been working hard to develop a programme for the start of the year that responds to the wide-ranging crises, international and domestic, in which we currently find ourselves.

This February and March we’re inviting three extraordinary companies of artists to Manchester to share their views of the world and to help us think afresh.

The Fête of Britain is an exercise in creative democracy from some of the UK’s most important artists – including Jeremy Deller, Es Devlin and Brian Eno. Over a three-day period, they will be inviting the people of Manchester (and beyond) to explore new solutions to the crisis of democracy in which we find ourselves. If none of us feel represented by our politicians anymore, then can we re-think what representation and decision-making might look like? Cheekily using the frame of the British Fête as starting point, the artists will take over Aviva Studios with a provocative and sometimes very funny exploration of British society – and what we want it to be.

In the year of a crucial US election, Dark Noon explores how one of the great American myths – the Wild West – helped to create that country, and its current crisis. Surprisingly, the performers of Dark Noon are all from South Africa, and bring a truly fresh perspective to the American story, emphasising how Westerns, and the values they embody, have shaped all our imaginations, and helped define the role America plays in the world. As we potentially head into a new ‘Wild West’ in America, Dark Noon invites us as audience members to take part in an interactive re-imagining of the U S of A.

The Long Shadow of Alois Brunner invites us to think differently about the crises in the Middle East. Created by a group of exiled Syrian performers, working with leading director Omar Elerian, this many-layered story unpicks the ways in which the genocidal practises of the 1930s and '40s have continued to impact across generations, creating shocking and surprising traumatic links between warring populations.

Our first projects for 2024 – and a range of talks and discussions that will accompany them – specifically target the more complex and challenging part of that vision: inviting unfamiliar views of life and the world into our shared imagination.

While 2023 was an exciting and successful time for Factory International, and more widely for Manchester, our goal is not only to put on great shows. In building a new cultural space for Manchester, our goal has also always been to open up a place for ideas, for emotions, for understanding – and for imagining the future. Our first projects for 2024 specifically target the more complex and challenging part of that vision: inviting unfamiliar views of life and the world into our shared imagination.

Lead photo: The Long Shadow of Alois Brunner by Tom Dachs.