About
Milton Keynes Fringe Festival 2025 will be co-directed by Ciara Callaghan and Madeleine Wilkie; two artists with individual practices and a combined practice. In reference to the Fringe being under a co-directorship, the theme for 2025 Fringe is an exploration of collaboration; what emerges when creative practices come together to create something new, the challenges, joys and intricacies of the process.
We commit to being as transparent and fair as possible. We aim to be part of a wider movement drawing attention to the common issues in the arts around diversity, fair pay and inclusion. We aim to work in an open and fluid manner; inviting conversation and feedback from the arts community and the wider community of Milton Keynes.
Collaboration is a core component of creative practice amongst artists in Milton Keynes. Artistic collaborations often occur behind the scenes and go unseen: the collaborative efforts to make something happen. Collaboration in this sense takes many forms: to source materials for an artwork, to figure out the logistics of assembling, moving and re-assembling an artwork, for example. There’s also the process of installing art. Exhibition spaces need preparing for install. Painting walls, resurfacing floors, building partitions, organising what goes where and next to which works. What if certain artworks don’t work together? Does the space have sufficient light? Is there too much light? What about the electrics? What about sound? In a collaborative effort to pull something of, collaboration in art can be pretty manual: wielding tools, cleaning spaces, fixing things that break (including artworks themselves).
Collaboration in the arts also occurs in front of the scenes and is more easily seen: the people who volunteer their time at exhibitions to relay the intentions of an artwork to visitors. The family, friends and strangers who show their support by spending time in front of an artwork, taking in its form and its meaning. Listening to sound art, watching performances, engaging with interactive pieces. Collaboration in this sense is defined by the conversations and discussions that happen in front of artworks, or ideas that are sparked in the process of looking at, and moving between works, in the space itself. What did you think of that? Have you seen this? In this sense, collaboration is not static, it’s an ongoing process.
Collaboration is also the theme of the 2025 edition of Milton Keynes Fringe Festival, under the co-direction of artists Ciara Callaghan and Madeleine Wilkie. ‘What emerges from when creative practices come together to create something new?’, this edition of Fringe asks. What challenges and joys will emerge in the process of bringing together 30 artists, whose work is installed in gallery and outdoors sites across Milton Keynes? How will the city’s urban and green spaces be transformed for the duration of July?
A cursory look of creative practice and evolution in Milton Keynes—a new city born out of a New Town, out of the combining of an old village and several old towns—may can some indication of how coming together, in the name of artistic collaboration, can create and nurture new relationships with art. Over the years, Milton Keynes has weathered lazy tropes and missives, cited as truisms: Milton Keynes, it’s all concrete and roundabouts, right? There are many roundabouts, to be sure, but not an inordinate amount of concrete. In any case, the image of Milton Keynes as a landscape cast in concrete is one that is premised on the idea of an artificial sprawl that was built with a rigidity and inflexibility so deeply embedded within its fabric that there could be no scope for growth and change.
Concrete is a composite material—a collaboration between cement, sand, aggregates and water, if you will. Back in the ’70s, artist-in-residence, Liz Leyh, worked with communities across Milton Keynes, using concrete as a cheap and accessible material with which to create sculptures and sculptural forms. Much of Leyh’s work was done in collaboration with local residents and other community artists. Of the many concrete play sculptures and forms made by artists working in Milton Keynes, the Cows are the most well-known: a herd of six cows composed of concrete, wire and other detritus, a project made in collaboration with local school children. Installed in Loughton Valley Park, the cows serve as a reminder of a creative and collaborative impulses that provide the structure of the city.
The framework of Milton Keynes is premised on its grid road system—a loose rectilinear network that connects the city together. Sometimes, that framework can feel like it creates near misses rather than direct connections, like catching a brief glimpse of the Cows in their grazing from the view of the H3 carriageway. But what if the fabric of the city was likened to a patchwork quilt, woven together along the fringed edges of its smaller sections to form a multifarious whole?
This is a city that brands itself as better by design, but there’s something more informal, and inherently collaborative, that underpins the creative practice of being in Milton Keynes. It’s a D-I-Y mentality that’s akin to the behind-the-scenes work that goes into getting an exhibition or a show off the ground. It exists on the fringes of the city, in temporary spaces—former warehouses, community centres and shop units [The Old Bus Station, Former Next shop window, 8 Sunset Walk]—that are repurposed as de facto arts, music and cultural venues.
Often flying under the radar of commercial sponsorship, blockbuster attractions and big (or any) budgets, it’s a creative scene that is propped up by artists who share in common a commitment to collaboration—in coming together to create something new, for the benefit of other artists and other communities within Milton Keynes.
As the city grows, so does the reputation of its existing arts and cultural venues. Annual and biennale arts, culture and creative events also attract audiences from afar. Through temporary interventions in everyday spaces on the fringes of the city, creative practices in Milton Keynes also connect with audiences from within. Coming together in this way provides informal spaces for emerging artists to nurture their practice with the guidance and support of fellow artists. In this way, collaboration is a shared endeavour.
The emphasis is not so much on producing a polished, end product that provides a neat framework for creative practice. Instead, in the process of weaving together what exists on the fringes of Milton Keynes’s patchwork quilt, what emerges is something, not accidental, but purposeful: the behind-the-scenes becomes front-and-centre.
2025 Programme
Exhibitions
Show Them Where To Go
Richard Harrison
4 July until 27 July
Campbell Park, CMK
[viewable 24/7]
What is it?
An outdoor installation
Event:
Community Picnic Sun 20 July 4-6pm Tickets here!
Arcadia Is In The Soil
Tendayi Vine
7 July until 27 July
Campbell Park, CMK
[viewable 24/7]
What is it?
An outdoor installation
A Longer Day
Zara Ramsay
14 July until 27 July
Window Gallery, CMK Shopping Centre
[viewable 24/7]
What is it?
A sculpture
Henna Homecoming: Stories in Stain
Nuzhat Fatima
19 July until 26 July
187 MK Open Market, CMK
What is it?
An exhibition + workshop
Events:
Henna workshop 1 Sat 19 July 1–3pm
Tickets here!
Henna workshop 2 Sun 20 July 1–3pm
Tickets here!
Places Togather
Thomas Eke
4 July until 27 July
8 Sunset Walk, CMK
What is it?
Indoor installation
Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Group Show
12 July until 27 July
The Old Bus Station, CMK
What is it?
Group exhibition
Events:
Private View [open to all!]
Fri 11 July 6–9pm
Tickets here!
Sound/Performance
No Longer a Memory
Clint Trofa + Sapphire Goss
Support: Records and Evidence Centre
Sat 12 July 6–10pm
Big Shop Friday, CMK
What is it?
A live performance
Tickets here!
Braiding The Fragments
Heather Britton
Sat 19 + Sun 20 July 12–4pm
Events Space, MK Gallery, CMK
What is it?
An Audio Visual installation
clairaudience
Caroline Devine
Sat 19 July 4–8pm
Grafton Park, CMK
What is it?
A sound Installation
Events
Walking Tour
Robin Clements
Sat 19 July 2–4pm
The Old Bus Station, CMK
What is it?
A walking tour of entire festival, walking from The Old Bus Station to Campbell Park.
Tickets here!
Sensory Tour
Robin Clements
Sat 26 July 2–4pm
The Old Bus Station, CMK
What is it?
A walking sensory tour of the entire festival, walking from The Old Bus Station to Campbell Park.
Tickets here!
Closing Party
East London Strippers Collective
+
Rookie
Fri 25 July 7.30pm–12am
The Box Arts Club, Kiln Farm
What is it?
A closing party for Fringe 2025, beginning with a life drawing class with East London Strippers Collective [7.30pm-9.30pm], ending with DJs.
Tickets here!
Map of Central Milton Keynes
Tom Guilmard
Map Key
1. Group Show
The Old Bus Station, CMK
What3Words: ///performs.noble.producers
2. Caroline Devine
Grafton Park, CMK
What3Words: ///mallets.cuddled.taxi
3. Tom Eke
8 Sunset Walk, CMK
What3Words: ///weeps.reconnect.polo
4. Nuzhat Fatima
MK Open Market, CMK
What3Words: ///voltages.peach.intricate
5. Zara Ramsay
Next Window, Shopping Centre CMK
What3Words: ///hockey.afterglow.stoops
6. Clint Troffa + Sapphire Goss
James Carney
Big Shop Friday, CMK
What3Words: ///answer.someone.threading
7. Heather Britton
Events Space MK Gallery, CMK
What3Words: ///dolphin.conspire.data
8. Tendayi Vine
Campbell Park, CMK
What3Words: ///snores.dentistry.ground
9. Richard Harrison
Campbell Park, CMK
What3Words: ///bump.occupations.fronted
10. Closing Party w/ ELSC
The Box Arts Club, Kiln Farm
What3Words: ///roses.anchorman.they