Exhibitions
Creative TouristAcross Manchester and Salford, exhibitions are thinking hard about how things are made – and how materials carry stories.
City of Making traces Salford’s lineage from manufacturing and industry to the present moment of studios filled with artists, designers and creative technologists. Picking up that thread, Manchester Craft and Design Centre hosts a collaborative exhibition with Design-Nation, where 14 North West artists make a case for craft not as nostalgia, but as an evolving way of thinking through materials.
Two exhibitions draw on industrial history. On The Line at People’s History Museum gathers banners, posters and everyday objects as the materials of collective action, while Power Hall: After Hours at Science and Industry Museum reanimates historic engines through performance and play – for one night only.
And a free talk at Aviva Studios turns from materials to the conditions of making itself, with broadcaster and author Nihal Arthanayake in conversation with radical theatre company Tribe Arts about what it means to create under censorship.
Finally, a brand new sound art series from Modus Arts shifts us into the unseen. Sandbox: Magnetic Resonance tunes into the invisible force of magnetism, and its mysterious role in guiding migratory birds across continents.
Across different scales and materials, these exhibitions trace how making – in all its forms – shapes how we understand the world around us.
