“I think the key word is balance,” says Monica Ferguson, Artistic Director of IF: Milton Keynes International Festival. “We have been taking our audience on a journey since 2010, asking more questions of the city and of our audiences. There’s a trust which is hard won and easily lost.” It’s this careful dance between the daring and the accessible, the intimate and the spectacular, that defines the 2025 edition of this biennial festival, running 18–27 July.
That’s right boys and squirrels, the festival opens today!
Now in its eighth iteration, IF: Milton Keynes continues to push the boundaries of what public art can mean to a city like Milton Keynes—a place still young in terms of cultural memory but increasingly defined by bold ambition.
Turning the City into a Stage
“Planning a festival which uses the city as a stage is a marathon rather than a sprint,” Ferguson admits. “After two years of planning including months of discussions with artists, landowners, residents and community groups, safety advisory groups and other stakeholders, the reward is always the public engagement with the project.”
Ferguson reflects on the process with the conviction of someone who has seen ideas transform from improbable to inevitable: “We often talk about making the impossible possible and finding ways to get people to say ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’ to some of the unusual requests from artists that want to do quite extraordinary things.”
“Planning a festival which uses the city as a stage is a marathon rather than a sprint…”
These extraordinary things include this year’s UK premieres: Fugit, an immersive piece from Catalonian company Kamchàtka, and DNA, Vertical Odyssey by France’s Transe Express, a 40-metre aerial spectacle unfolding under a 200-ton crane. The former places audiences in the hands of strangers for a haunting meditation on migration. The latter features aerial dance, circus, drumming and live music performed on a kinetic sculpture in the sky.
“When you breathe a sigh of relief and reflect on however difficult it has been, it was worth pursuing the ‘yes’,” Ferguson concludes.
Themes That Connect and Counterbalance
“It always starts with a spark—something you see which takes your breath away,” Ferguson says. “That often becomes an anchor point for building a wider connection.” For 2025, that spark was Human Time Tree Time, a hauntingly poised performance from Belgian company Klub Girko, where artists balance on a tree trunk suspended two metres above ground.
“Seeing these incredible artists balance on this precarious structure made me think about how we as humans find a sense of balance in our lives and how we as humans are disrupting the balance of our planet,” Ferguson says. From there, a thematic current emerged: climate change, conflict, and the search for peace. “This led us to Michael Pendry’s installation, Les Colombes (The White Doves), Mark Anderson’s Warning Notes, and Kamchàtka’s Fugit.”
Still, she stresses, “There has to be a counterbalance which just affords a sense of fun and frivolity—from street theatre to great music and comedy in the Spiegeltent. Our aim is that audiences experience a great event—often a one-off and unexpected—without any knowledge of an overarching Festival narrative.”
Absorbed, Moved, Changed
“Some will walk on after a few minutes; some will become absorbed,” Ferguson says of the public’s encounters with the Festival’s site-specific programming. She recalls Kamchàtka performing in a local market in 2023: “We saw two extremes in one day… people being verbally abusive, verging on physically abusive… to a bystander who felt compelled to feed the artists her chips one by one.”
Another onlooker was so touched that she replaced the chips for the original donor and her family. One audience member was in tears. “She turned to me and told me she was a refugee and had seen all of this in her journey from Afghanistan—the best of humanity and the worst of humanity.”
“Some will walk on after a few minutes; some will become absorbed…”
Partnership with the Open University
The Festival’s partnership with The Open University helps the further ideas of art with insight. “Often the artists provide a stepping stone into the academic world and our partnership offers a conduit to encourage people to ‘discover more,’” Ferguson says. “The Festival also challenges academics to find ways to communicate in bite-sized pieces their areas of research so that it becomes a symbiotic relationship.”
“It’s not just science and art,” she adds. “It can be research into how music is made or the symbolism of the dove—but it’s particularly exciting this year to enable Festival visitors to walk into the space labs and see what scientists are looking at in space in real time.”
Local Artists, Global Vision
While IF:MK brings international work to the city, it also looks to cultivate the local creative ecosystem. “One of the big creative changes is how much we have involved local artists working alongside artists over longer periods of time to engage communities in the creation of the work,” Ferguson explains.
She believes this approach helps embed the festival into the city’s cultural fabric. “It creates a really good opportunity for everyone to learn new skills and develop contacts and relationships. We have powerful advocates for the Festival and each year they are able to share their experiences with others.”
Culture in the Concrete City
“The 2010 Festival was a pilot,” Ferguson recalls, “and our ambition was really to create something which could show a different side to Milton Keynes… a place generally loved by residents… but the butt of too many jokes about concrete cows and roundabouts!”
As the city nears its 60th anniversary, Ferguson sees opportunity in Milton Keynes’ relative blank slate. “It hasn’t got the Victorian theatre, concert hall culture that you see in other cities. That means artists have more of a blank canvas perhaps to work outside of conventional spaces and do extraordinary things which is helping to forge an identity in Milton Keynes which is different by design.”
Artistic Integrity, Accessible Ambition
“It’s a tricky balancing act,” Ferguson says of the pricing model. “There are some artists who command higher ticket prices… Lou Sanders, Lucy Spraggan, The Selecter, Yuck Circus and Roachford… However, that’s balanced with the free and low-cost events which we offer across the Festival.”
The £10 average ticket price (that’s a rough estimation on my part), many free events, and philanthropic support all reflect IF:MK’s commitment to accessibility. But Ferguson measures success beyond economics: “I think artists give people a greater sense of place, community and ambition.”
She describes the dove-making workshops supporting Pendry’s installation as an example. “We’ve already seen significant numbers of people coming together in groups, working together, talking together and listening to each other… Ukrainian refugees, the Hindu Association, Camphill Communities.”
“The more dialogue with and between communities that we enable helps to further the sense of working together for the benefit of all communities,” she says. “And I think that is something which Milton Keynes has a pretty good track record with.”
Discovering Something for Everyone
“Not everyone will enjoy everything,” Ferguson admits. “But I hope there is something in the programme that everyone can relate to and enjoy—whether it’s a spectacle for thousands, a project that brings communities together, a free family day out, or an intimate thought-provoking experience for one.”
Featured Image: IFMK2025, Pagrav Dance’s One Sky
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