Moon Grove

Moon Grove isn’t your typical Manchester gallery. First and foremost it’s housed in a private Georgian house on what happens to be the oldest residential street in Manchester, a short walk from Rusholme’s Curry Mile, and a longer one from the Whitworth.

Its exhibitions often come as a surprise too, leaning towards internationally engaged, critically serious names rather than the typical local gallery fare you’d expect. This is down to Founder Andrew Hunt, a curator with pediagree – former director of Reading International, Focal Point Gallery and Spacex, one-time Turner Prize judge, and until recently a professor at Manchester School of Art. Along with fellow director Benjamin Cook, since 2022 he’s delivered a programme that’s punched well above the gallery’s weight: Louise Giovanelli showed new paintings here after her Manchester Art Gallery exhibition, and Karen Barbour picked Moon Grove for her first UK solo show. Not bad for a front room in Rusholme.

That domesticity is the charm. You’re a guest in someone’s house, the work shown in rooms with fireplaces and skirting boards rather than track lighting and plasterboard. It’s also a genuinely independent, unaffiliated space – no university backing, no institutional safety net, so alongside the likes of texture, Paradise Works, and Saan1, it’s a place to support.

The gallery is free to visit, but on its own terms: Thursdays and Fridays, 12–6pm, exhibitions only. And it’s probably best to check Instagram (@moon_grove_) to be sure, before you make the trip.