This month, Sheffield’s premium electronic music and visual arts festival No Bounds will be makings its return, taking place 14th-16th October across a number of city centre venues. We spoke to Liam O’Shea, founder of both the event itself and its spiritual home of Hope Works, about what we can expect from this year’s jam-packed programme.
What brought No Bounds to life?
No Bounds Festival is the result of my life lived in music. It is the intersection of many aspects of interest for me, from music to visual art, performance art to poetry, technology to counterculture, and progressive approaches to societal issues. It started in 2017 after I’d been running Hope Works for five years. I had built up a base to expand my work as an artistic director/curator and event organiser, and I wanted to do something in Sheffield that joined the conversation with other leading avant-garde festivals such as Unsound, CTM, Mutek, Berlin Atonal and Terraforma. I wanted to do it in a way that was rooted in Sheffield, true to our musical heritage and vibrant contemporary culture.
“I wanted to do it in a way that was rooted in Sheffield.” Photo: Frankie Casillo
Now in its sixth edition, how has the festival grown since its inception?
It has really grown in ambition and reach. It’s still a very small team, but we’ve grown our collaborators and curators to help expand the depth of ideas and expertise we can draw on. In 2019, we won ‘Best Boutique Festival’ in the DJ Mag UK Best Of British Awards. Last year, we received our first Guardian five-star review, which we think really shows how the reputation for excellence is growing. Through the years we’ve grown to partner with big venues such as Kelham Island Museum, Site Gallery and Millennium Gallery. In 2022, our most ambitious iteration yet, we are working in Sheffield Cathedral, Moore Street Substation, SADACCA, J.G.Graves Woodland Discovery Centre and others, from DINA and Plot 22 to Dorothy Pax, Bal Fashions and Delicious Clam. We have a more extensive free-for-all section to allow more people the opportunity to experience great art without barriers. We have been able to grow our audience from just 1,000 in 2017 to many thousand in 2022!
Which elements of the event are you most excited about this year?
Everything in the programme excites me. We’ve painstakingly woven together a weekend of interesting and fun things to do. It’s mind, body and soul food on offer here, not just music. In a new development, we’re bringing our opening and closing concerts to Sheffield Cathedral in spectacular fashion. Launching on Friday with Blawan, Blackhaine, Deena Abdelwahed and more, then closing on Sunday with a series of works commissioned by Mark Fell to be performed by Explore Ensemble – a live, deep listening meditation to ease things down on Sunday. Elsewhere the mighty Working Men’s Club will perform live at Hope Works for our closing party. This is the biggest closer we’ve ever done, and the first time we’ve placed a live band like this in Hope Works. I have to mention the opening up of Moore Street Substation this year, where we will be taking in small groups of people to witness a very special installation inside that colossal brutalist structure. It’s only been opened up once before, in 2016, but never when fully operational.
Hope Works remains the beating heart of No Bounds, and the Sheffield underground music and arts scene as a whole. For our student newcomers, can you explain what the venue is all about?
We are celebrating ten years of amazing parties. We have always had the motto ‘music and art first’ – and that sums us up. We were born out of the underground culture of this city; we are rooted in it. We try to push boundaries, take chances and explore new ground. We have kept the flame burning for the electronic heritage of this city – everything from Cabaret Voltaire to Off Me Nut Records – while carving out a reputation for parties that bang, be it techno or disco.
We do what we do with heart and passion. We are a rough and ready warehouse venue tucked away just a five-minute taxi ride from the city centre in S4 (Sussex Road). We pride ourselves on great production and programming over cosmetic niceties. Don’t expect flash toilets here: expect to sweat, have your mind expanded and make new friends who share the same open-minded love of life and music and art culture as you do! All in a safe space that welcomes people from all backgrounds to come and be themselves, however that is.
We were born out of the underground culture of this city; we are rooted in it.
What is it about No Bounds that makes it a quintessentially ‘Sheffield’ event?
We mix it up in a very Sheffield way. For me, that means celebrating our own culture alongside that of the international artists we bring through. We place great importance on supporting and platforming northern artists, soundsystems and production teams, and it is through this cultural representation that I believe the authentic feel of the festival is maintained. I have always believed in acting local and thinking global. This process has manifested in No Bounds and given the festival its centre of gravity. I have lived this, I’ve been part of the community and culture here in the city for 30-plus years. I think the hardworking, diligent nature of the Sheffield folk I know coupled with their dry wit and sharp critical thinking is the cauldron in which this is wrought. The molten flow is poured into the city and has an ultimate baseline in the industrial location of Hope Works, the gritty nature of that warehouse and the area it sits within. It’s an authentic industrial zone in the Steel Citeh!
How’s the future shaping up – both in terms of No Bounds and Hope Works?
Well, times are not easy; the whole of the events industry is going through immense hardships due to a multitude of factors. However, Hope Works is strong, and we’ve made it to a decade. Ten years of tonkin’ it. But there’s much more to be done in Sheffield and beyond. Hope Works has a massive Autumn/Winter season to deliver featuring some huge names, while No Bounds has dropped its biggest, most ambitious lineup ever with over 100 artists performing over three days in 10 venues. Watch this space for 2023!
For the full No Bounds lineup and ticket info, head to noboundsfestival.co.uk
