What Is the City but the People? // Hannah Ross

How to take a city, slice 100 people from the prism and get a cross-section suitable to be walked down a suspended catwalk whilst having their image displayed on towering screens in its centre? How to defend against those who are keen to whip out accusations of tokenism (as if representation is distasteful), without creating pastiched narratives about citizens as though they’re part of a saccharine version of Propp’s character theory? Post-election - mayoral and general - it feels apt to put a lens on at least a handful of local folk who make up the electorate, not only upon the renowned figures who feature in the festival.

Deller’s design is like a live art remodelling of Lowry’s 1954 ‘Piccadilly Gardens’, which hangs only a stone’s throw away on Manchester Art Gallery’s ground floor and similarly depicts a procession of people with an adjacent fountain in the very same location. Deller’s motifs of ordinariness and public space were, too, to be found in his 2009 MIF piece ‘Procession’. He must have maintained the same interest that he previously had in showcasing ‘The Big Issue sellers’ for, in the 2017 work, one such seller opens the work before us. It is static but for the flow of chosen ones along the elevated catwalk, oscillating between two screens that show pre-prepared shots of each person, plus snippets of candid biographies to boot. As the screens face each other, there's a sense of mise en abyme, mirrored further as people watch not only the procession but also the reactions and anticipations of one another in the Very Ordinary crowd. A foot before me stands Mancunian screen legend Julie Hesmondhalgh, later to be hugged by Boltonian wonder Maxine Peake in a Corbynista lock (a micro-spectacle of its own). The stage provides the expected unexpected - there's Bez, gently gyrating! There's that lovely woman who whizzed me around Bury North as we canvassed, and look, she’s got a baby with her!

There is one man in a wheelchair, a lady nearly a centenarian who has a walking aid. Walking, lingering, parading, protesting - as you ambulate through the vocabulary, words like these can become politically charged. What is it to march, or to stand up, and who can do this? What is ‘a movement’ in essence? The Manchester Activist Group take the spotlight and call protest ‘an expression of desire’. But when we think of a city full of people, celebrating a glorious exposure of variegated humans - can we talk about how this could remain inaccessible to some, with certain people’s experiences inexpressible (though, granted, the piece makes efforts to speak of homelessness, and MIF’s Festival in My House has gone some way to bringing events to a greater variety of areas)? About a recent public endorsement of forced institutionalisation, and the people whose city is often barred to them? Even with the inevitable and forgivable partiality that comes when trying to represent a large metropolis through a comparatively small set of individuals, we ought to keep stoking this discussion. The square flickers with pop-colour electronic posters asking the rhetorical title question of the show. May it be a city of people in their full variety, where resistance and optimism equitably uphold all. (HR)

- Hannah Ross

LINKS RELEVANT TO THIS DIAGNOSIS:

MIF - What Is the City but the People?

Propp’s Character Theory

LS Lowry - Picadilly Gardens 

Jeremy Deller - Procession

Mise en Abyme - A Gallery curated by Fedebrique

MIF - Festival in my House

Election 2017 - Tory disability minister endorses forced institutionalisation

What Is the City but the People? // Amanda Dunlop

Piccadilly Gardens is sunny and crowded. Friends bump into each other and strangers talk for the first time. Above us is an 80-metre raised walkway, two giant projection screens and a stage. MIF17 opens with a single figure parading down the runway to the pounding beat of DJ Graham Massey and assorted local buskers and musicians. The same man closes the show. He is homeless and sells The Big Issue. 

In between, 149 other city dwellers strut their stuff. Dog walkers, lovers, drag artists, protesters and famous Mancunians. The taxi drivers who turned off their meters on the night of the recent bomb in the city. A brand-new baby and a Mancunian in her 100th year. Different cultures, creeds and social stratas. Manchester. This is an artistic statement that celebrates diversity and community.

Manchester is one of the most ethnically diverse districts in the country, and the only authority outside London with residents from each of the 90 detailed ethnic groups listed in the census. The city is growing rapidly, with the population is expected to exceed 550,000 by 2021. It is a city which prides itself on welcoming new people, but it is also a city with rapidly increasing numbers of rough sleepers, up 41% in the last year. Some of our newer residents struggle to find a home and have to be creative with hidden, disused spaces. Organisations such as Coffee for Craig, The Booth Centre and The Brick Project are all doing great work to address the problem. Andy Burnham recently pledged 15% of his salary as Lord Mayor to an appeal intended to end homelessness by 2020.

After the attack on 22nd May the city feels kinder and more empathetic. Manchester values call us to focus on what we have in common and how we all contribute to Manchester– those who are newly arrived and those who have always lived here. We should remember that taxi drivers of all religions turned their meters off and homeless men cradled injured children and carried them to safety.

Let’s hope that Deller’s vision on the walkway remind us all to be a little kinder and practice empathy. The walkway took several weeks to build but overnight it was removed after the ceremony. It could have been a great temporary roof for Manchester’s rough sleepers to rest under as well as walk over. (AD)

- Amanda Dunlop

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

MIF - What Is the City but the People?

Homelessness - Manchester Evening News

Coffee for Craig

The Booth Centre

The Brick Project

Andy Burnham Salary Donation - Guardian

What Is the City but the People? // Reina Yaidoo

A catwalk was set up right in the middle of Piccadilly Gardens and out strut Manchester’s finest. Ranging from a new born baby to a centenarian, taxi drivers, former Lord Mayors, artists and revellers all strode out to a driving beat. If the city aimed to proclaim itself through its people then there we stood. No rain, much applause.

Each dweller was framed with a story, individual to them giving meaning to the person behind the face.

• ‘Kate chose her own name. She was christened Andrew.’

• ‘Chris stood on the rooftop of the empty Ducie Bridge Pub. He wanted to say people could live here. Instead he got two months bread and breakfast in Strangeways.’

• ‘The big tower that howls. Ian designed that and much more of Manchester after the IRA bomb.’

Midway during the event a question is asked - Are the stories of the people of Manchester one of resistance or resilience? It would seem both words reference attitudes at the soul of what it means to be Mancunian but which would the people of Manchester most value: their resistance to the challenges they face or, their resilience, their ability to recover from these same obstacles?

Manchester is a city of two halves. It has nearly half a dozen universities, yet is also ranked the 5th most deprived local authority area in England. Two hundred languages are spoken in Manchester yet statistics from the National Literacy Trust show low levels of reading affecting literacy. Manchester boasts one of the most expansive digital and creative sectors covering computer programming, film and broadcasting yet the population continually shows higher rates of mental ill health than the national average. 

Maybe a more resonant question is how can these two halves work together in a dual display of resistance and resilience?

The parade continues and we see old and new lovers greet each other, the common electrifying day to day harmony of neighbours looking after one another and the ease of everyday stories. It becomes easier and easier to forget this notion of separation and instead consider solutions.

The World Health Organisation and Mental Health Foundation state that communities with high levels of social capital, indicated by norms of trust, reciprocity, and participation are more resilient and better able to resist the effect of material deprivation. Perhaps, then, every year we should leave a space in Manchester’s calendar for a catwalk of the cities’ residents, with background stories set up to remind us to trust in the primacy of goodwill and cooperation, to resist inequality of opportunity and build up some good old fashioned social capital. (RY)

- Reina Yaidoo

Links Relevant to this diagnosis:

Multilingual Manchester - A Fact Sheet

The National Literary Trust Manchester 

Greater Manchester Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy

World Health Organisation - Mental Health, Resilience and Inequalities

Mental Health Foundation - Commentary 

Social capital and the power of relationships - Al Condeluci at TEDxGrandviewAve

Building social capital | Joseph Cabrera | TEDxScranton

What Is the City but the People? // Tom Patterson

The Manchester International Festival opened on Thursday 29th June with What Is the City but the People? 160 participants walked, biked, danced, jogged and ambled along a raised runway in Piccadilly Gardens. People who might not usually be together were given the same platform, each having the same experience and sharing the same applause, from a Big Issue seller to a dance group, a taxi driver to a university chancellor. Being outdoors by a transport hub meant that it was not only highly visible but easily accessible. And breaking a Manchester tradition it didn’t even rain.

Each participant was accompanied by a streamlined narrative, conveyed through photographs and text projected onto large screens, creating an effect like flash-fiction. The text summarised a choice moment from their lives, a struggle, event or experience that they had lived through. Many were survivors, and such personal and sometimes traumatic experiences gave an intensity to these micro-narratives. This in turn gave the impression that we were seeing the participants’ souls laid bare, that we could know them deeply in that short moment. There was choreography to the event, orchestrated to retain attention and fit into its narrative framework. Several participants had stories that converged, like the man who was joined by his blind date on the runway. These vignettes give an impression of a bigger story beyond the event, a choice that led here and a relationship continuing into the future.

But we were only observers. It was impossible to see everything, because it was all done in such quick succession. As one person walked along the runway, the next participant’s pictures and backstory flashed up, and too much time looking at the screens meant missing the person in front of you. Did they wave? Were they happy? Normally, we get to know people by talking and sharing experiences; it’s a two-way street. As the event drew to a close, audience members seemed to be turning to one another and asking themselves; “Who is this standing next to me, this stranger, and what is their story?”

We will never know everyone’s history and sometimes even our closest friends and family surprise us with a story we’ve never heard before or a viewpoint that we didn’t know they held. But every one of the thousands of people that stream past us every day has something meaningful that they could tell us, that would make us laugh or think. We live insular lives, always watching screens with our earphones plugged in and sometimes we need to unplug, to speak to the person at the bus stop or ask the shopkeeper how their day was. Even if we only pass through each other’s lives briefly we can still have a meaningful conversation. To break down the walls between people we need to ask each other questions and really listen to the answers. (TP)

-Tom Patterson

LINKS RELEVANT TO THIS DIAGNOSIS:

MIF - What Is the City but the People?

Always Talk to Strangers - The Atlantic

Adults and Digital Devices - Scientific American

Flash Fiction

Why You Should Talk to Strangers - TED

What Is the City but the People? // Asif Majid

What is a city? The opening event of the 2017 Manchester International Festival (MIF) put forth an answer: its people. That the city is not the space those people inhabit, as much as it is the people who inhabit it. Paying tribute to Manchester, MIF’s What Is the City but the People? compelled audiences to see the city as more than a static collection of buildings and concrete. This is not a new idea, but rather one that draws heavily on social geographer Doreen Massey’s decades-old notion that spaces have multiple identities, are embedded in power dynamics, and rely on networks of social relations. What Is the City made its claim by parading dozens of Mancunians down a 100-meter catwalk in the heart of Manchester, Piccadilly Gardens. Dogwalkers, children, cyclists, refugees, taxi drivers, and lovers all appeared. It was a beautiful collection of people.

But Manchester is many things, both what was seen on the catwalk on June 29th, its opposite, and a range of lives in between. The event presented experiences of hope, strength, and community, but the city is also more than that, for better and for worse. Alongside the positive, the event might have also acknowledged the spice epidemic plaguing those experiencing homelessness in Piccadilly, an area inundated by the drug. Or it might have gestured to the major cuts to university staff at two Manchester universities (The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University), disproportionately effecting social and artistic fields, that are being fought by students and faculty alike. It might also have considered the spike in hate crime against those who are visibly Muslim that occurred in the month after the attack on Manchester Arena, reinforcing continued tensions and fears. Perhaps, then, the evening was more about highlighting what Manchester sees as the best parts of itself rather than reflecting all its complexities.

With Manchester still healing after the violence of May 22nd, What Is the City became an unintended commentary on the city’s resilience: anything other than celebration would have been inappropriate. At the same time, however, it is important to bear in mind another of Massey’s ideas, that space is no more than “a cut through the myriad stories in which we are all living at any one moment.” This runway-inspired slice of Manchester is only one drop of honey taken from a much larger pot, one boll of cotton drawn from a much wider field. It is a particular selection of people, reflecting a particular artist’s intention, at a particular moment in the life of the city. It should not be taken as universally or even totally Manchester, but rather as an invitation to deepen our relationship with the urban. For if a city is its people, to celebrate it is to take its good with its bad together. (AM)

- Asif Majid

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

MIF - What Is the City but the People?

Doreen Massey and Theories of Space

The Spice Epidemic

Cuts to Manchester Universities - Guardian and Manchester Evening News

Spike in Hate Crime after Manchester Attack