Dining In
Commissioned for the Portico Library, 2022
Exhibition curated by Xhi Ndubisi, with Darryl Gadzekpo, Ella Phillips, Peggy Brunache, Renny O'Shea, Zuleika Lebow, Uli Westfal, Quarantine, Sheila Gheleni & Sue Palmer, Stephanie Black-Daniels, Ecaterina Stefanescu, Horace Lindezey and Terry Williams.
“Engage with ideas about what we eat, where we eat, and who we eat with.”
Xhi Ndubisi, Curator
Voices: The Didijis
Commissioned for the Portico Library, 2022
Pop-up exhibition by Sunaina Bhalla, Asmaa Mahmud Hashmi, Suman Gujral, Madhu Manipatruni and curator Uthra Rajgopal on their experience of cultural barriers negotiated by South Asian women in their homes, families and in the arts and heritage sectors. Marking 75 years since Partition, this display responded to the Library’s nineteenth-century international connections, the erasure of South Asian women in the historic archive, and what it means to be part of a diaspora. The word Didiji is a well-known Hindi term commonly used to respectfully address an elder sister or lady.
Tracing the art of a Stolen Generation: the child artists of Carrolup
Presented by Curtin University with the Carrolup Elders Reference Group, 2022
An exhibition sharing the story of the First Nations children and families from Western Australia who have survived the impact of colonisation to find love, strength and resilience through the art of the child artists of Carrolup, curated by Michelle Broun with Dr Helen Idle and Goreng Noongar Elder Mr Ezzard Flowers. Supported by Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries Western Australia, Australian High Commission in the United Kingdom, British Council Australia, BHP, John Curtin Gallery and Curtin University.
In the Margins
Programmed for the Portico Library, 2022
Self-titled and curated by a community-led collective coordinated by Abir Tobji, In the Margins saw artists, writers, students and Manchester residents come together to ask “Whose voice is loud enough to be heard? Through whose eyes do we frame the world?”. Throughout the year, the Portico hosts exhibitions from local and international artists that examine the historic collection’s influence on twenty-first-century life and society. In summer 2022, we cleared the display space for our visitors to tell us what these books mean to them, how the city can make the most of this unique resource, and what futures the Library can contribute to.
Learn about Kiganda Dance with Aminah Namakula
Commissioned for the Portico Library, 2021
For Fun & Games: Playtime past and present, artist Birungi Kawooya exhibited new works depicting Ugandan Kiganda dancers intended to 'embody the beauty of the African diaspora'. To complement and provide context for these artworks, Birungi collaborated with dance expert Aminah Namakula to create this new Kiganda film specially for the project.
Queer/Nature: What is ‘natural’ anyway?
Commissioned with Aoife Larkin for Second Nature: What is nature anyway? 2019
Edgar Pêra: Who is the Master Who Makes the Grass Green? - Jorge Jácome: Flores - Sadé Mica: (Various Works) - Maryna Makarenko: Jellyfish - Flóra Anna Buda: Entropia - Jem Cohen: Drink Deep
“Looking at ecologies and landscape through a queer lens, we are invited to move beyond categories, labels and hierarchies to imagine new ways of thinking about nature and our place within it. This short film programme celebrates the multitude of bodies, behaviours and relationships that exist in the natural world, questioning the lines we’ve drawn between human and nature, male and female, the natural and the unnatural.”
Jamie Allan, Curator, 2019
WILD LANDS
Commissioned for The Portico Library, 2019
“WILD LANDS, a new commission by artist and producer Amy Lawrence, is a woman-led performance in collaboration with artists Joe Whitmore, Rowland Hill and Juliet Davis-Dufayard. The work invites an audience on a video-journey through a pocket of Manchester’s urban woodland at night via interactive technology and movement, drawing on the tradition of place-writing. The event includes a facilitated open conversation about gendered bodies, marginalisation, power and women’s relationship to urban wild-spaces at night.”
Amy Lawrence, Artist/Producer, 2019
Daisy Chain Reaction
Commissioned for Second Nature: What is nature anyway, 2019
“Daisies are the most common and best-loved weed in England. Does finding out that they are not native to the UK change your opinion of them? Using the surprising migrant history of one of the UK's most common and well-loved flowers, artists and practitioners Jessica El Mal (Journeys Festival International) and Juliette Davis-Dufayard (Let’s Keep Growing) lead a discursive workshop exploring the value of where things come from and what it means to feel rooted in a place. Bending copper wire to answer questions and express ideas, the group left behind a daisy chain of their own, as a marker of how the history of the common daisy affected their thoughts on the day.”
Jessica El Mal, Artist, 2019
Manchester: Ruskin Free City
With Tania Bruguera, Alistair Hudson and Tunde Adefioye.
Conceived and produced to accompany Making the News: Reading between the lines, from Peterloo to Meskel Square
Nineteenthth-century artist, critic and social reformer John Ruskin said “I perceive that Manchester can produce no good art and no good literature”. In his eyes, this city saw the price of everything and the value of nothing - not grasping art’s true potential as a tool for social change and for the development of an ethical society. In 2019, his bicentenary year, what does Manchester have to say to this influential but controversial thinker’s ideas? Pose your questions to the new Director of Manchester Art Gallery and the Whitworth, Alistair Hudson, and Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera, who have responded to some of Ruskin’s challenges by proposing to “put art to use” through the movement of Arte Útil. Hosted by Tunde Adekoya, Director of Big People Music, this lively debate was an opportunity to ask important questions about art, power and society.
Spirited
Programmed for The Portico Library, 2018
“Spirited was Spirit of 2012’s autumn 2018 exhibition, designed as a celebration of young people and a commemoration of the unsung women – and men – who fought for the vote one hundred years ago.
Spirited told the stories of some of the remarkable young people whose activism helped bring about seismic change in UK politics and culture.
Centring on Manchester as the birthplace of the suffrage movement, it brought to life their incredible acts of courage, creativity and cunning in order to inspire today’s young people into taking their own first steps into social action.”
Catherine Riley, Curator, 2018
Entwined: Knowledge & power in the age of Captain Cook
Commissioned for The Portico Library and co-curated with Dr Helen Idle in partnership with the Menzies Australia Institute at King’s College London, 2018
2018 marked 250 years since the start of the voyage that culminated with Gweagal people at Kamay (Botany Bay) witnessing the first arrival of British people on their shores. Entwined used items from the Portico Library’s historic collection, including first editions of Captain Cook’s journals, to consider the social and philosophical contexts in which the resulting process of colonisation came about.
Dr Helen Idle, Curator, 2020
Does Information + Technology = Knowledge?
Programmed for The Things That Look Back, 2018
“Using artist Nicola Dale’s work as a starting point, experts from different fields of study debate what aspects of “knowledge” are gained or lost through rapid changes in communication and technology. With Nicola Dale - Artist and Researcher, Nicholas Royle - Author and Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr Fred Schurink - Historian of Books and Reading, University of Manchester.”
Nicola Dale, Artist/Researcher, 2018
Gut Healing
Commissioned for Bittersweet, 2017
A one-off programme of live poetry, spoken word, performance and site-specific video art devised and coordinated by artist and producer Amy Lawrence with specially commissioned contributions from Diana Tap, Alison Erika Forde, Seleena Laverne Daye, Henrietta Phoebe Dunn, Miray Sidhom; plus new performances from Harold Offeh and Elmi Ali and booklet design by Camille Smithwick. Included among other elements is an immersive all-female participatory work created by Lawrence herself, influenced by her ongoing research into the relationships between women's voices and the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, in particular Sojourner Truth's iconic ‘Ain't I a Woman’ speech of 1851.
Amy Lawrence, Artist/Director, 2017
Cut Cloth: contemporary textiles and feminism
Programmed for The Portico Library, 2017
“Cut Cloth contemplates the rise in popularity of art textiles and its impact on its value as a specifically feminist mode of expression. Once a belittled and marginalized medium, it was a radical act [in itself] to bring women’s work into the gallery space. Artists looked to both subvert and celebrate textiles in order to disrupt the very femininities that it played a role in constructing. This project of reclamation and elevation is by no means finished- textiles still sit in an ambiguous space between art, craft, private and public space. However the increasing popularity and commercialisation of textiles, and of feminism in art and culture must be reflected upon. Cut cloth looks toward strategies that respond to these new challenges, drawing upon feminist legacies whilst acknowledging the shifting politics of cloth in contemporary culture.”
Sarah-Joy Ford, Curator, 2017
Turning Blue
Conceived and produced for The Portico Prize for Literature, 2017
“Ahead of the release of Ben Myers’ new book, The Gallows Pole, The Portico Library hosted a one-off, collaborative event taking in music, art and spoken word. Performances of Myers’ writing were be combined with an original live score composed and performed by David McLean and his Crime Scene ensemble. No stranger to collaborative practice, McLean took part in the Samarbeta residency at Islington Mill earlier in the year alongside Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Lydia Lunch. There’s also an art element to Turning Blue as a new exhibition of work by Carolyn Curtis-Magri will be on display in this atmospheric space at the same time. Called Silenced Voices, the art exhibition explores a real-life unsolved murder case set in the same area of Yorkshire frequented by characters from Myers’ books through the artist’s intricate drawings. Curtis-Magri has worked extensively with ex-offenders and is a member of Salford’s acclaimed Suite group as well as artist-in-residence at Manchester charity, the Mustard Tree.”
Joshua Gordon, Manchester Wire, 2017