Public opening times
11 – 27 July 2025
12pm – 4pm, Thursday – Sunday
(No wheelchair access)
A group show, bringing together the work of 21 artists with disciplines ranging from installation and sculpture, to drawing, painting and photography as well as some audio/ visual digital works. Wouldn’t it be nice presents work by artists who are either from or who are connected to the city in some way.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice is an exhibition exploring the nuances of collaboration—pairing, communication, conversation, and the formation of connection. It considers the moment of encounter: what happens between two solid things? What emerges at the edge of one form meeting another?
This exhibition brings together a mix of established and emerging artists to examine how place influences practice. Set within the transitional space of Milton Keynes’ Grade II-listed former bus station, the exhibition mirrors the themes of change, disuse, and renewal in a city perpetually shifting. The architecture itself—weathered and storied—serves as a living backdrop, its material traces echoing the past while housing visions of what might come next. These works inhabit the liminal, offering reflections on time passing, of a city aging.
The exhibition takes its title from the closing line of the iconic The Story of the Red Balloon advertisement, created to promote Milton Keynes as a model for a new kind of city. Wouldn’t It Be Nice if all cities were like Milton Keynes?
Wouldn’t it be nice invokes the arcadian spirit that once propelled its creation—an idealism that still lingers in its infrastructure, now half-forgotten or reimagined. It reflects the energy behind the dream of a hopeful utopia- that same energy which is still reverberating around the city's many disused buildings almost 60 years on, and an energy which Milton Keynes Fringe festival aims to bring to the city.
For more information on MK Fringe Festival 2025 visit:
https://mkfringefestival.com/
You may also like the following events from MK Fringe:
Also check out other
Arts events in Milton Keynes,
Exhibitions in Milton Keynes,
Fine Arts events in Milton Keynes.
