ArtBomb: A Meaningful Use Of Time
Doncaster | 15–17 August 2025
Theme: A Meaningful Use of Time
ArtBomb Festival returns this summer with a weekend of creative disruption, deep reflection, and curated chaos. This year’s theme — A Meaningful Use of Time — invites artists, audiences, thinkers, communities, and dreamers to slow down and tune in. Time is spoken of like money. We spend it, waste it, try to save it. This commodification of time has roots in the Industrial Revolution, when the sun gave way to the clock as the measure of a working day. That legacy persists — not only in the Amazon warehouse, but in how we define ourselves: by what we do, not who we are or how we live.
Disrupting the Rhythm
For three days, street corners, market squares, and ArtBomb’s town centre hub will become living stages, with over 20 exceptional artists disrupting the rhythms of ‘normal’ life. The festival will morph and move through Doncaster, never static, always alive. This year we’re thrilled to host the UK’s first Hey! Literature Festival (a festival within a festival), presenting some of the country’s most radical spoken word artists alongside Doncaster-based talent, which includes a presentation in Market Square by poet Salena Godden and a collaboration with many local stars.
Hard | Art, Hard Art
A cultural collective standing in solidarity through climate and democratic collapse. Artists, thinkers and doers — including Brian Eno, Es Devlin, Jay Griffiths and Juliette Stevenson — explore how we might reimagine a world where we serve each other and the planet with courage, creativity and care
Tick-tock
Labour-saving tech promised us more time. Sleep apps, productivity trackers, optimisation tools — all chasing the ‘best version’ of ourselves. But the reality? Digital devices are devouring time. Days, months, years lost to screens. “We’re living through the TikTokification of society.” — Jennie Gilman, Co-Curator Automation has always been a double-edged sword. From the motor car to ChatGPT, machines were meant to lighten our load — but often only accelerate our pace. Edison’s light bulb extended the working day, distorting sleep, rhythms, and health — all in the name of productivity. What are we racing toward? What does toxic productivity achieve? Maybe we’re just terrified we don’t know why we’re here — so we stay busy. ArtBomb25 offers another path: a meaningful pause, a slower rhythm, and the space to dream forward.
ArtBomb: Rooted in Doncaster
ArtBomb is part of a wave of alternative cultural renewal in Doncaster. Based in the town centre, it rethinks placemaking and builds grassroots partnerships — with initiatives such as Bentley Urban Farm, Commune of the North, and Doncaster Unitarians. It acts as action-based research, responding to real social needs through street art workshops, growing projects, and a table tennis club — all set within the context of a rapidly evolving post-industrial city.
