Summer at HOME
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
This summer, HOME present a programme that takes stock of the world, reflecting upon historical struggles, both local and international, whilst looking at the anxieties and tensions we face today, and the ways in which artists are responding.
Multimedia theatre piece, The Drill, looks at the ways in which we prepare for emergency situations and asks us to examine the kinds of futures we are rehearsing. In the cinemas, Something for Everyone: Celebrating 70 Years of the NHS, is a film season that surveys the history of one of our most beloved institutions in a way that raises inevitable questions about the difficult paths ahead.
This year, HOME are taking part in the nationwide Refugee Week, with a weeklong festival composed of exhibitions, performances, theatre, live music and film by contemporary refugee artists. Refugees have been the source of much hand-wringing, political movement and newspaper print over the last few years, and HOME’s programme provides an opportunity to celebrate their contribution to the UK whilst raising awareness of ‘the refugee experience’ through art.
In the gallery, Phil Collins: Can’t Do Right For Doing Wrong, is a solo exhibition in which the Turner-prize nominated artist reconnects Manchester with its radical history, prompting visitors to confront the struggles many encounter under late-period capitalism. Speaking of Manchester, Where We Are is a double-bill performance that starts in Piccadilly Gardens and then takes us from Little Hulton to Levenshulme, Flixton to Failsworth, Denton to Didsbury, where we’re prompted to discuss what it means to be a part of the city.
HOME also take the time to do justice to local-lad-done-good, Albert Finney, with a season of films dedicated to showcasing the breadth Salford-born actor’s work in everything from gritty British New Wave dramas to Hollywood fantasies. Meanwhile, thousands of miles from the ship canal, Gbolahan Obisesan’s adaptation of Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen takes theatregoers to a small town in Nigeria for a loaded story of brothers on a forbidden fishing trip.
