Project overview

This is the blurb I wrote about our work to put up alongside our work with a list of names. I feel it sums up the project pretty well.

"An exhibition of collaborative work celebrating the diversity of culture in Manchester as the Art School reaches its 175th anniversary. Bringing together photographs, prints, illustrations and objects which individually explore different geographical areas of the city, collectively it represents how the variety in culture makes Manchester the vibrant, exciting place it is.
As a group of students from various backgrounds, we individually studied our cultures and hometowns before reflecting this back on the city we all now live in. Each group member took an area of the city to explore and used this as inspiration to create their own artworks, with many group members experimenting with mediums outside of their specialisms.

Various areas brought up different themes: the bright colours and textures of the Longsight markets led to photographs inspired by Pakistani wedding traditions, decorated mugs and bunting were a reflection of the vintage and café culture in the Northern Quarter, and prints and illustrations were influenced by the traditional architecture of Deansgate, Oxford Road and the Art School itself. Students also looked at concepts of childhood family photographs envisaged through their friends, physical differences through ethnicity and imagery taken from walking around the city streets.

All this individual work was brought together as one collaborative display, with group members hanging works side by side, layering artworks over each other or even creating origami out of each others photographs, to create a bold, vibrant and visually exciting exhibition of clashing mediums, styles, colours and scale that truly celebrates the amazing diversity of this city we all now call home."