Arrivals - 'Secret Manchester'

When I first arrived in Manchester I was quiet disappointed as I was tired and just coming off the motorway, so I decided that I would explore and see what Manchester had to offer, as I’ve always had views that it was a ‘cool’ city, one of the reasons I choose to come here was the great music scene it had.  So I wandered through the centre and found myself walking towards small side streets filled with amazing, quirky shops nothing that I have experienced back home.  I found myself in the Northern Quarter and to be honest I did not fully appreciate it right away. It was nice with lovely cafes and coffee shops but with the excitement of being in a new city, I didn’t really look at what was surrounding me.  I have been back to the Northern Quarter a few times since my first visit, but it wasn’t until Dave Haslam’s talk that I decided to go back and explore it more and since then I’ve been back about 3 or 4 times, and each time I’ve across something new that I hadn’t noticed before.  But it seems to me like things are waiting to be discovered such as place names done in mosaic tiles or art on the pavements it’s not something that’s well known of to be there, not that I know of anyway, but they can still be appreciated. 

I found the Dave Haslam talk very interesting, I was intrigued to what he was going to say about Manchester, he mentioned marginal activity and how things can make a cultural significance, and how things start of small and unknown like Joy Division preforming in a small pub in Salford to become big names.  He also talked a lot about fanzines, which shows Manchester is a city with passion and that people truly believe in what they are doing, such as the fanzines, I liked the way people could self-publish their work and not have to edit it to please a mass audience.   I’ve looked more into these fanzines online, such as the Salford zine library http://salfordzinelibrary.blogspot.com/, and Linder Sterling who co-founded ‘Secret Public’ along with Jon Savage, I quiet like the aspect in which these fanzines are produced, its straight to the point and no advertising from companies.

On Monday I went to special collections just for some history on Manchester, I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for, but I came across a Portfolio of Original Prints of Manchester by Norman C. Jaques who was a lecturer in printmaking at Manchester Polytech in the department of fine art.  I think with our project old school/new school it’s important to look at the history of Manchester itself.  The prints show Manchester as a developing city and it’s nice to see how things stay the same and how they can move on.