Artists announced for Beyond Survival: International Time Travel

We’re thrilled to share the news that SICK! Festival (Manchester, UK) has announced the four commissioned artists for Beyond Survival: International Time Travel — a major new cross-border initiative connecting communities in Manchester and Oulu, Finland, as part of SICK! Festival 2026 and Oulu2026 – European Capital of Culture.

Building on SICK!’s Beyond Survival framework, International Time Travel invites artists and communities in two post-industrial cities (Manchester and Oulu) to reflect on shared experiences of sustainability, migration, and industry, and to imagine fairer, more connected futures. Each artist will co-create new participatory artworks through residencies and digital exchange, culminating in public presentations at SICK! Festival 2026 and as part of the Oulu2026 programme.

This project has been supported by the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland, alongside partners ILME and Oulu2026.

Commissioned artists and projects:

Niki Colclough
Project: What would it mean to make an artwork for a river?
Spending time with rivers is a type of time travel, we can think back to their formation over millennia, and if we are hopeful, imagine them flowing into a future beyond our lifetimes. Rivers have played a formative role in the development of both Manchester and Oulu, shaping our cities through industry and migration, both are now sites of ecological recovery. Thinking with rivers encourages us to consider how we belong in global ecological communities.

Michael Betteridge
Project: What does it mean to find home as a queer person? How do our voices carry the echoes of where we’ve been and where we belong? Through a collaborative sonic journey between Manchester and Oulu, this project transforms queer stories of migration and identity into an immersive choral landscape that blurs the boundaries between memory, place, and sound.

Nina Rantala
Project: Down to Earth
Down to Earth explores our connection with the planet through dialogue and embodied imagination, inviting reflection on personal and collective histories shaped by industry and migration in Manchester. What forms of connection emerge when people’s lives are intertwined with Earth in different ways?

afshan d’souza-lodhi
Project: The Aunties
What if the future was designed by our aunties all living on a commune? The Aunties is a participatory storytelling project bringing together migrant women and non-binary people in Manchester and Oulu to imagine worlds shaped by our aunties, focussing on their care, gossip, and resistance. Together, we’ll weave stories across both places to create a living archive of memories and radical acts of love, while building a commune to help us survive the polycrisis.