What's on

Made in Manchester Exhibition

Children's Library

Visit our art installation which was commissioned to celebrate the multilingual poem ‘Made in Manchester’.  Local artist, Emma Martin worked with nine schools to create this artwork, with around 200 pupils creating colourful portraits of classmates onto the multiple-language verses of the Made in Manchester poem.  These portraits were cut and reformed into a finished art […]

Manchester College Student Exhibition

Wolfson Reading Room

Students from The Manchester College’s UAL Diploma in Foundation Studies Art and Design were given random Dewey numbers (the most widely used method for classifying books in libraries) from Central Library’s collection. Their brief was to use the book as a starting point to develop a body of research, work and outcomes in response to […]

Whose Knowledge Matters

First Floor

Whose knowledge matters when we represent the city? Who decides what land to protect or destroy, whose heritage to celebrate, whose stories to tell and who gets ‘seen’ in the visual and spatial record of the city? This exhibition presents a series of counter-maps to explore different histories and residents’ knowledge from across Greater Manchester. […]

Women of Aktion

Archives+ Ground Floor

An exhibition sharing the story of the German Revolution 1918 and reclaiming the voices of the female revolutionaries who have, until now, been hidden from the official narrative. In November 1918, Germany erupted with a revolution which led to the establishment of the first democracy on German soil, the end of oppressive censorship, and the […]

The Hidden Tableaux’s Peterloo Massacre 1819

First Floor Exhibition Hall

Hidden’ is an ongoing series of photographic tableaux by internationally acclaimed Artist and a Founder of ‘Rock Against Racism’, Red Saunders The Hidden Project shines photographic light on great moments in the long struggle of working people for democracy and social justice. The aim of the project, through reimagining those events, is to reproduce important […]

1819 to 1981 Exhibition

Performance Space

Linda Brogan, Excavating The Reno, who excavated the Reno cellar club in Moss Side MCR, and Manchester Histories have joined forces to present 1819 – 1981. This one day exhibition (running on Sat 15 June, Thurs 18 July and Tues 13 Aug) will tell the stories of the memoirs of police and communities from the 1981 […]

1819-1981 Exhibition

Performance Space

Linda Brogan, Excavating The Reno, who excavated the Reno cellar club in Moss Side MCR, and Manchester Histories have joined forces to present 1819 – 1981. This one day exhibition (running on Sat 15 June, Thurs 18 July and Tues 13 Aug) will tell the stories of the memoirs of police and communities from the 1981 […]

1819-1981 Exhibition

Performance Space

Linda Brogan, Excavating The Reno, who excavated the Reno cellar club in Moss Side MCR, and Manchester Histories have joined forces to present 1819 – 1981. This one day exhibition (running on Sat 15 June, Thurs 18 July and Tues 13 Aug) will tell the stories of the memoirs of police and communities from the 1981 […]

Greenham Women Everywhere

This year, The Heritage Lottery Fund South West funded a partnership project between Scary Little Girls and The Heroine Collective to gather the in-depth oral testimonies of almost 100 Greenham Women. The team have travelled up and down the country interviewing the women, taking original photographs and collecting material from a variety of archives. This […]

Libertalia

Lower Ground Floor Exhibition Space

On the anniversary of Peterloo, we want to transport you to the world of ‘Libertalia’ a place where all are free and equal, a ‘way of being’ the people of Peterloo wanted so much for Manchester. ‘Libertalia’ was a city founded by Madagascan pirates in the 17th century. Here the pirates acted as “vigilant guardians of […]

Walk Without Fear

Lower Ground Floor Link

MAG (Mines Advisory Group), a Manchester-based landmine clearance charity, is celebrating 30 years of life-saving work across the globe. The Walk Without Fear exhibition tells the stories of people affected by landmines in Angola, and MAG's campaign for a world without landmines by 2025.

Deaf Education & Audiology: A Journey through Artefacts, Archives and Creativity

First Floor Display Cases

The histories and lived experiences of deafness are rich and complex. Extraordinary technological advances have been made in the exploration of hearing, alongside a better appreciation of the social and psychological impact of sensory perception on learning. The materials displayed offer an insight into the varied historical and contemporary approaches in deaf education and audiology, from […]