Rae-Yen Song: *May-May Songuu* at CFCCA

Creative Tourist

Visit now

Rae-Yen Song: *May-May Songuu*

esea contemporary, Manchester
24 January-12 April 2020

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Rae-Yen Song: *May-May Songuu*
Rae-Yen Song, Song Dynasty II, family portrait (2018). Photo by Michael Barr.
Book now

*May-May Songuu* is an exhibition by Rae-Yen Song at CFCCA which explores the construction of personal identity through relationships – familial, communal and divine – which revolve around appetite, and the sharing and offering of food.

Consisting of costumes, sculptural objects, growing specimens, animation and large-scale drawings, the exhibition will tell a mythical story about the origins of appetite, seen through the prism of sisterly love. It will be complemented by a series of workshops with Manchester’s Chinese communities in which new work will be generated in response to the installation. Prompting community gathering, conversation and making, the workshops will culminate in a closing event and shared meal.

Rae-Yen Song explores self-mythologising as a survival tactic, using fantasy and fabulation to create a personal cultural language informed by autobiography, family stories, relationships and shared memories. Rae-Yen adopts this language as a tool for self-definition and identification, using it to form narratives that speak broadly and politically about race, gender, culture, identity and what it means to belong – or not.

Where to go near Rae-Yen Song: *May-May Songuu* at CFCCA

Manchester Pubs
Manchester
Bar or Pub
Trof Northern Quarter

It’s a landmark year for Trof NQ. In the ten years since it first opened, the Northern Quarter has developed around it to become one of the city’s most prominent areas.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
Bar 21

A bar in Manchester’s Northern Quarter for fans of television and cinema science fiction. Enjoy food and drink amongst a off-beat selection of movie memorabilia.

Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
This & That Café

Eternally popular curry canteen taking its name from a time when patrons didn’t know what to call their orders, but pointed instead to a bit of “this” and “that”.

Manchester
Bar or Pub
The Bay Horse Tavern

The Bay Horse Tavern is a laid-back pub based in the dead centre of the Northern Quarter, with a wide range of drinks and food options.

Manchester
Café or Coffee Shop
Ziferblat Manchester

Ziferblat is a pay as you stay café in the northern quarter, where everything is free – except the time you spend.

Manchester
Shopping Centre
Smithfield Market

The neo-Romanesque arches of this former wholesale food market still stand as a reminder to the Northern Quarter’s mercantile past.

What's on: Exhibitions

Until
Exhibitions
The Vessel at PINK

Chris Thompson transforms PINK into an uncanny, interactive cabinet of obsessions, inviting visitors to uncover its shifting, unstable narratives.

Free entry
Until
ExhibitionsCity Centre
Just Browsing at the Bluecoat

Please DO touch – Bluecoat’s new exhibition ‘Just Browsing’ allows audiences to get closer to the artworks and engage beyond looking.

Free entry

Culture Guides

Music in the North

We have an eclectic mix of gigs for you this month, moving from experimental electronics and noise rock to synth pop, opera, and hyper-local R&B.

Food and Drink in the North

Hear ye, hear ye. Take some eating-out tips from our wintertime guide to food and drink in Manchester and the North.

Textured portrait image of Jarman
Theatre in the North

Theatre across the North West splits between festive escape and sharp, urgent work exploring politics, power and resistance.

A doll with makeup peeks out of a hanging wall of butter yellow fabric. Red and black threads descend and cascade around the doll.
Exhibitions in the North

This season, exhibitions across the North West feel attuned to the world beneath the world – the forces and stories shaping how we see, feel and imagine.

A performer in a bright red costume sits on a snowy stage set, holding a large snowball between their legs with a surprised expression. The colourful winter backdrop features snowflakes, hills, a snowman, and a traffic light with glowing lights.
Family things to do in the North

Whether you’re after storybook theatre, museum wanderings or illusion-bending play spaces, there’s plenty to keep curiosity ticking through winter and beyond.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Cinema in the North

There's no shortage of great films out at the moment, whether you're looking for the latest blockbuster, that hot arthouse flick fresh from Cannes or a cosy classic.