In our 10th festival edition, we examine infrastructure as a lived material and cultural condition, illuminating the connection between people and place. We examine the networks, historical extraction legacies, and social climates that underpin contemporary life in the North of England.

Through a programme of immersive installation, durational performance, film premieres and stimulating talks from leading experts, the festival meets Barnsley’s ambitions to be the UK’s leading tech town, and the North’s identity as a place of creativity, innovation and cultural exchange.

Across sound, simulation, and participatory systems, the festival dwells in the liminal zones of place, where connection emerges over isolation, where infrastructures reveal the uneven geographies of industry, ecology, and community, where collective imaginaries take shape through shared experience.

AND Festival 2026 presents playful opportunities to encounter the in-between. Join us to reimagine relationships between humans, landscapes, and the built environments we inhabit that inform our daily rhythms. 

All events are free to attend. Booking is encouraged for our festival commissions Krumville, Northern Passage: A Quest To Hopian and Acoustic Memories to guarantee entry at your preferred time.

Presenting works: 

Acoustic Memories (new commission for AND Festival)
MONOM
Elsecar Heritage Centre
Fri 25 – Sun 27 September \\ 11-7pm with slots on the hour 

An immersive spatial audio installation exploring the acoustic memory of extraction and the hidden infrastructures beneath Barnsley’s industrial landscape. A new commission for AND Festival 2026.

Krumville (new commission for AND Festival)
Dian Joy
Barnsley Civic
Fri 25 – Sun 27 September \\ 10-6pm with slots on the hour 

Krumville is a multi-screen film exploring memory, perception, and mediated experience through a fictional town created from remixing algorithmic image-making and personal recollections. A new commission for AND Festival 2026.

Northern Passage: A Quest To Hopian (new commission for AND Festival)
Jazmin Morris
Barnsley Market, The Glass Works
Fri 25 – Sun 27 September \\ 10-6pm with slots on the hour 

Northern Passage: A Quest To Hopian is an interactive three-level game inspired by real locations in Barnsley, gradually transforming from sparse and inert landscapes into vibrant worlds. A new commission for AND Festival 2026.

Chaos Theory
Metahaven
Elsecar Heritage Centre
Fri 25 – Sun 27 September \\ 11-7pm \\ Drop-in

An audiovisual poem structured around the dialogues and wanderings of two characters confronting the contemporary world and its puzzling flows of interconnected phenomena.

Hapi Tomorrow (World premiere)
Visuals by Chepertom (Thomas Collet) and music by ZULI
Screening as part of SERVER at Barnsley Civic
Time TBA

An audio-visual work mapping a landscape where the birth and death of human civilisation ripple across the computer screen. A world premiere.

SERVER
Going Away.tv
Barnsley Civic
Fri 25 – Sun 27 September \\ 10.30-5.30pm \\ Drop-in

SERVER is a continuous, 7-hour, artist-led festival film channel creating space for critical reflection, speculative storytelling and interdisciplinary exchange.

(W)HOLE (adapted iteration)
Clusterduck
Locations TBA
Fri 25 – Sun 27 September \\ 10-6pm \\ Public Realm

(W)HOLE uncovers hidden digital infrastructures through sculpture and AR, using manhole covers as portals to reveal interconnected systems.

Unsecuring Infrastructures
A live research environment for thinking critically and speculatively about Barnsley’s designation as the UK’s first Tech Town, through the lens of the festival’s core commissions.