Krumville \\ Dian Joy

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.

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Rather than a single overarching storyline, the work presents a day-in-the-life of Krumville through repetitions, echoes, and interrelations where characters, motifs, and scenes reappear across five synced chapters. Using social media images and lived experience as blueprints, Krumville explores how networked cognition reshapes digital culture into an emergent narrative-building machine. These uncanny images are then restaged with filmed performances in real locations, forming a recursive loop where memory becomes data, image, and performance.

Presented within a phantom shopping centre space, where dormant escalators stand as remnants of a future that never arrived at the back of Barnsley Civic, Krumville unfolds across five ambiguous environments: a factory grounded in labour-intensive metaphor; a high street populated by synchronised figures and quiet absurdities; a theatre occupied by a lone pacing dog and distant disembodied voices; a diner suspended in a loop of stalled action; and an underpass where isolated characters appear tenuously connected across space. Influenced by cinematic and televisual language, AI image generation, and online visual culture, the work constructs a world that feels both hyper-specific and strangely universal.

Krumville by Dian Joy is commissioned and produced by Abandon Normal Devices (AND) for AND Festival 2026 with development and touring support from Wigan Council and Barnsley Civic. Supported using public funding through the National Lottery by Arts Council England. With additional support through Immersive Arts – Experiment grant awarded to the artist.

What to expect

Entrance to Krumville is free but booking is encouraged to guarantee entry at your preferred hour slot. In the event that you turn up without a ticket there may be a small number of walk up spots available, or a chance to book at a later time.
Krumville is a multi screen installation that is 20 minutes long and cycles 3 times across the hour. It takes place in a disused escalator space at the back of Barnsley Civic.


Access provisions

  • There is no narrative speech in Krumville, but there will be a soundtrack and some incidental ambient sounds.
  • There is an audio-descriptive spoken word track to accompany Krumville. This will be available during all time slots using bone conduction headphones. The headphones will be available at the entrance to the elevator space.  Members of the AND26 team will be able to help you use these.
    The headphones with the audio-descriptive track will be available for everyone, but if you know you would like to use them for access reasons, you can let us know in advance by emailing access@andfestival.org.uk. We’ll make sure there is a set waiting for you.
  • You can collect ear plugs and large print copies of the interpretation information about the artwork from the gallery space if you need them.
  • There is no permanent seating in the elevator space but there will be  seating available to borrow if you need it. Just ask a member of the AND26 team in the space.
  • There will be a relaxed time slot for Krumville every day between 1pm and 2pm . There will be fewer people in the space at these times. The sensory experience has not been adjusted for this slot.

To book your relaxed time slot for Krumville, please go to our dedicated page.

Additional access information on the venue can be found on our Access Information page. 

Age Guidance

We recommend the minimum age for this installation is 12+. It features 5 synced projections depicting fictional characters within Northern landscapes with themes and content more suitable for older children.

Krumville Credits

CAST

Angel Okolo – Looking 1
Amelya Goldy – Waving
Arno Verano – Driving
Bianca Scout – Crying
Boe Rogers – Sweeping
Jago & Hayley Harvey – Ranging
Lucy Aley-Parker – Judging
Mariia Isai – Waiting
Maya Tetteh – Looking 3
Mirony Mujinga – Looking 2
Robert G Slade – Searching
Shammi Aulakh – Pushing

CREW

Dian Joy – Director and VFX
Alex Mill – 1st Assistant Director
Klein Delacroix – Casting Director
Feryel Kaabeche – Artist’s Assistant
Emilia Clark – Producer
Sophie Hayter – Production Asisstant
Benjo Leggett – Director of Photography
Olivia Prendergast – 1st Assistant Camera
Orrin Saint Pierre – Camera Trainee
Belle Palmano – Gaffer
Stephen Allwright – Spark
Jenny Glynn – Hair and Makeup Designer
Ana Pereira – Costume Designer
Nicola Morgan- Costume Assistant
Delia Detritus – Custom Sign
Dian Joy – Props
Adam Muscat & Dian Joy – Edit
Cajm – Sound
James White – VFX
Justin Drew – Picture Grader