✨That's a wrap on MAW25, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this edition possible - artists, collaborators, volunteers, audiences, and partners alike. What an extraordinary week it’s been.
This year’s festival, under the theme In All Possible Worlds, invited the town to imagine futures shaped by resilience, connection, and collective imagination. We activated empty shops, streets, and unexpected corners across Middlesbrough with work by local, national, and international artists -spanning exhibitions, performances, screenings, workshops, public interventions, and critical conversations.
🔵 Highlights included:
The North East Open Call and New Graduate Award exhibitions, which brought forward new voices across the region.
Exhibition across town including Weapon & Wound, And Where Now?, Svitlo (Light), Slow Doom Scroll, Apartheid Apartments, 22 Carat Gold, Residual Echo and more each weaving threads of memory, identity, politics, and place.
incredible live performances and walkabouts - from uncanny presences in the streets with
@jeremyhutchison ,
@lindacassels ,
@filippos_tsitsopoulos and
@imelda_says , intimate encounters in shopfronts with
@libertyhodes , to gigs late into the night from
@industrialcoast + more.
Screenings, talks, and public programmes that questioned power, truth, technology, and the ways we see one another.
And of course, the Ukrainian Takeover & Closing Party at The Auxiliary, curated by Timothy Maxymenko - a powerful, celebratory evening that felt like a fitting send-off and a hopeful way to welcome you into to our new gallery space.
🙌 We’ll be back next year!
Thank you!
From Middlesbrough Art Week team
📸 Images
@racheldeakin_ 
