Mesh is a biennial festival for art and technology in Basel. The program includes exhibitions, performances, screenings, and workshops, complemented by a conference of talks and panel discussions. This year's edition, Infrastructures of Care, asks after good social relationships, fair technologies, and a mindful engagement with the environment. Mesh creates spaces for connection, exchange, and solidarity, understanding care as something shared that can be shaped together. At its center stands one question: how is technology changing the way we live together?

Mesh takes place at Freilager-Platz on the Dreispitz site in Basel, with a five-day program. It opens on Wednesday evening, October 14, with the opening ceremony, and is then open daily from Thursday to Sunday. Exhibitions, workshops, and screenings run throughout the festival week, while evenings are given over to performances and club nights.

Contents of the 2026 Edition

The program is structured around seven care themes — the "Circle of Care":

Commons of Connection shows how closeness emerges, even when encounters take place digitally. Memory Machines asks who decides what can be remembered, and preserves suppressed knowledge. Future Playgrounds creates cross-generational spaces for jointly testing out futures. Wild Cities brings cities into focus as habitats for humans, animals, and plants. Circular Systems centers on ecological and technological cycles rather than consumption. The program is rounded out by the hands-on theme Urban Actions | Spatial Utopias (in collaboration with iart) — which also takes shape in large-scale spatial installations. Non-Public Publics (in collaboration with Make/Sense and the Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures at the Basel Academy of Arts and Design Basel FHNW) mobilizes practices that resist logics of fragmentation.

For Everyone

Mesh belongs to everyone. No matter your age. No matter where you're from. No matter whether you know art or not. Alone, as a couple, or with the whole family — you're welcome. We invite you to discover spaces for closeness, exchange, and new ideas together with us. October 14–18, 2026, at Dreispitz in Basel — we look forward to seeing you.