This exhibition gathers together stories written, interpreted, and shared by our volunteers about what captivates them in the collection. From barely touched books at the top of the shelf to the irreplaceable Portico Archive, a wide range of interests are shared, and explained in this display.
Dining In: Exploring Manchester’s histories through our stomachs is an exhibition about the history of dining and food in the Northwest of England, how that’s changed over time, and the future of food and dining through interactive events at the Portico Library.
The word Didiji is a well-known respectful term commonly used in Hindi to address an elder sister or lady. When heard amongst a sea of English words, it brings a knowing smile. Uthra Rajgopal, an Independent Curator specialising in South Asian textiles, is a member of an all-female South Asian group of artists established in 2020 called the Didijis.
The Portico was once a colonial gentleman’s library set in the heartland of the cotton industry, which directly profited from the crops grown in the subcontinent of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Today the Portico is proud to exhibit Voices: the Didijis artistic responses to the collection, and what it means to be part of a diaspora. The artists chose publications from the collection that looked at the subcontinent through a colonial lens and made connections with their individual art practices.
Manchester is a city which was built on the wealth of the British Empire. The Didijis’ presence could never have been imagined when the Portico library was built, and we celebrate their voices here now.
On 7 July The Portico Library is sharing the story of the First Nation 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.
Explore some of the issues and challenges in looking at parts of our historic collection of books from the nineteenth century.
The most frequent question from first-time Portico Library visitors is “what is polite literature”? The meaning of this phrase, painted in nineteenth-century gold lettering above the library’s largest bookshelf, is unclear to today’s readers, and evokes an era in which the concept of ‘politeness’ was central to culture and society.
In recent years, politeness in public, online, and among political leaders has become a topic of intense debate. While respect and care for others' feelings have been attacked under claims of “freedom of speech”, politeness and diplomacy have also been used as a cover for defending positions of privilege.
Fifteen artists including Gang of Five collective and young people from mental health charity 42nd Street have considered notions of civility, etiquette and politeness today and at the time of the Portico’s establishment in 1806—how these ideas were bound with oppressive ideologies and how they impact our wellbeing today. Their artworks and research will be shown alongside 18th-century prints by satirist William Hogarth and books from the Library’s historic collection. From the 1792 Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue to Twitter storms and Billie Eilish, this exhibition looks beneath the surface of ‘polite society’, then and now.
Throughout summer 2021, The Portico Library helped to lead Manchester’s cultural recovery, bringing a groundbreaking installation of immersive sculptural and textile works by world-renowned Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno to the city. Accompanying Maria’s joyful, spectacular pieces, exhibited under the Library’s 215-year-old original Regency-period glass dome, was an evolving display of Library visitors’ own drawings created through posing and interacting with the original artworks.
20th Nov 2020 - 14 Jun 2021
View the online exhibition here
What makes a game a game? Is it any activity with rules or contestants? Does it always include an element of fun, play, skill or luck?
After a year in which many have experienced the challenging effects of social isolation, The Portico Library invites the public to a restorative programme celebrating games and recreation through the ages. From Jane Austen’s depictions of the card-playing Georgian middle classes to Dickens’ festivals and dances, 19th-century literature describes the roles that pastimes play in our cultural lives, and the social, moral and intellectual aspects of game-playing. With Hope Strickland, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Birungi Kawooya. Read More…
Visit the Library Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm, or view the online exhibition here.
April 2020 marks 250 years since Lieutenant James Cook arrived, uninvited, onto Gweagal shores at Kamay (Botany Bay) in what is now Australia. For the local Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, this event changed everything. Dispossessing them of their homes, lands and governance for the benefit of the newcomers and those far away in Britain. What it is to be here: Colonisation and resistance considers how this process of colonisation and First Nations people’s resistance to it continue to this day. Read more…
Free public preview: Thurs, 16 January, 6–8pm
Friday 17 January 2020 - Tuesday 14 April 2020
Fifty artists. Fifty minds. Fifty artworks in paint, film, drawing, sculpture and print.
The vocabulary we use to describe mental and emotional experience is changing. With attitudes shifting towards compassion in policy and treatment, terms such as wellbeing, recovery and mental health are being re-examined, and their connotations questioned. Words like neurodiversity have emerged to describe the world of mind and brain/thought and feeling in a less stigmatising way – but studying the neurological is just one part of developing our understanding. Societies are also responsible for distress and disability, and our behaviours between each other shape our lives.
The standard guide for most psychologists, psychiatrists and services remains the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – first published in 1952. In the exhibition Talking Sense, fifty artworks, are paired with fifty phrases created by jumbling the contents of this textbook’s most recent edition, whose terminology and methodology have been criticised by professionals and survivors of harmful treatments. By reorganising this language and juxtaposing it with eclectic artworks we hope to open up a space for helpful conversations around the future of care.
4 Oct 2019 - 6 Jan 2020 (Free public preview Thursday 3 Oct, 6pm-8pm)
Navid Asghari, Jackie Chettur, Oliver East, Louise Hewitt, Jessica El Mal, Ruth Murray, Joanna Whittle
In the Georgian and Victorian eras, science was called Natural Philosophy. Eighteenth and nineteenth-century naturalists such as Alexander von Humboldt – the first to identify human-induced climate change – sought to understand people’s place in the world while questioning the use of the term ‘nature’ to justify social structures and political standpoints. Today, alternative debates around nature are reshaping how we think about our relationships with the environment.
Recent studies show that two thirds of UK adults feel they have ‘lost touch with nature’ and our vocabulary to describe it is diminishing. How might new ideas and definitions of nature affect our priorities, and can reconnecting with the living world help us find solutions to current environmental emergencies and broader social divisions?
Second Nature brings together historic literature and artefacts, up-to-date research and new works by contemporary artists and young people to ask what we mean by ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ today and how these terms have been used throughout the modern age.
Poster image: Louise Hewitt. Supported by the Zochonis Charitable Trust, with thanks to Manchester Museum, Venture Arts and Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
Throughout summer 2019, Manchester is holding bicentenary commemorations of the Peterloo Massacre, exploring themes of protest, democracy and freedom of speech. The Portico Library is one of the only remaining buildings to have witnessed Peterloo and its members at the time included liberal founder of The Guardian newspaper J.E. Taylor, and Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, who led the fatal cavalry charge. We have used the Library’s history and collection to provide context for an exhibition of related works by Ethiopian artist Robel Temesgen and the newly published graphic novel Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre.
Robel Temesgen creates hand-written newspapers that confound the reader, slipping between pro and anti-establishment messages and exploring the role of printed information in the shaping of democracy. His Meskel Square issue, depicting memories of one of the largest public spaces in Ethiopia, are on display. At the exhibition launch its pages were ‘performed’ by some of Manchester’s Amharic-speaking residents, who interpreted the texts in their own words for public audiences. Whether the texts were authentically translated remains unknowable for non-Amharic-speaking visitors, inviting us to consider where power lies in relation to language, literacy and printed material.
An additional new work, part of Temesgen’s adbar series, commemorates Peterloo and connects 21st-century audiences to the event through an extended experience of place and collective memory, created in response to text extracts evoking the spirit of Peter’s Field compiled in collaboration with author, Robert Poole.
Today, The Portico Library’s books sit on the same shelves as they did in 1850, providing a snap-shot of the borrowing and reading habits of Manchester’s Victorian residents. The Library retains detailed records of who borrowed what when, providing an intimate glimpse into their passions and predilections. In this exhibition, we present the original volumes that were borrowed, including Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Ruskin’s Modern Painters, with further information about the readers.
February 1 – March 25, 2019
Four visual artists present radical, expressive works that look at dress and costume’s historic and contemporary relationships with ritual, play, morality and resistance. These pieces invite us to think about celebration and wellbeing, mind and body, and the idea of ‘high’ vs ‘low’ culture.
New artworks by Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou, Ruby Kirby, Lindsey Mendick & Camille Smithwick, with books from the library’s collection including Joseph Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes of the People of England and John Northbrooke’s Treatise Against Dicing, Dancing, Plays and Interludes: with Other Idle Pastimes.
For the first time in its history, The Portico Library has this year been able to organise and catalogue its archival material digitally, thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Ever since the first recorded lease of the Library’s plot in 1792, what consistently shines through is a sense of vivacious storytelling. On Paper considers the parallels between the historical role of printed matter and the Library’s archives. In collaboration with artist Theresa Easton, we have unearthed personal stories of daily life throughout the Library’s history, creating new artworks to interpret our discoveries.
Oct 19, 2018 - Nov 24, 2018
Spirited tells the stories of some of the young women and girls who fought for the vote 100 years ago, centring on Manchester as the birthplace of the suffrage movement. It brings 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.
Some of the young women featured, who fought with such courage for the right to vote, did not qualify to do so when the Representation of the People Act was finally passed in 1918.
Either they were too young – the Act had an age qualification of 30 for women – or else they didn’t meet the property ownership qualification. One, cruelly, died the year after the Act was passed – but three years before she would have been old enough to cast a vote.
Their stories, and the stories of all the brave and bold women and men who demanded their right to be counted, are told here as a provocation to today’s young activists to embrace the opportunities on offer, and to be the change they want to see.
August 2018 marks 250 years since Captain James Cook set sail on a voyage of discovery considered by many to be the most significant in world history. Inspired by some of The Portico Library’s most fascinating items – first editions of Cook’s illustrated journals and the accompanying publications – we will select and present items from the collection that expose some of the motivating ideologies and streams of thought behind the encounters of the period.
This exhibition will take the form of a unique textile installation, accompanied by further treasures from the Library’s collection published during Cook’s lifetime, including Carl Linnaeus’ pioneering natural history volume 'Flora Lapponica', Adam Smith’s master work 'The Wealth of Nations', and Voltaire’s revolutionary satire 'Candide'. This project marks the start of a new ongoing collaboration with members of the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London.
Artists Dan Hays, Jane Lawson and Claire Tindale explore the opportunities and challenges that arise as we adapt to new technological formats for storing and sharing information. Over five centuries ago, Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the mechanical printing press revolutionised access to literature, and with it, all aspects of society - from politics and religion to science and education. The subsequent development of libraries and global publishing made it possible for millions of people to access texts from all over the world and now, new innovations allow us to hold entire libraries in the palm of our hand - and transfer them across continents in seconds.
As digital humans, we find ourselves in a world of virtual bookshelves, navigating a course through a seemingly infinite sea of data. While digitisation projects strive to store as much data as possible in the Cloud, what will be the role of books and libraries? Will they eventually become obsolete, or are there particular benefits they will always retain, and how will we, as digital humans, continue to react and adapt our behaviour?
The fantastical creatures illustrated in the 16th-century encyclopaedia Historiae Animalium have influenced countless writers and scholars through the centuries and form the starting point for The Portico Library’s 2018 exhibition, Beautiful Monsters. The book’s author, Conrad Gessner, included actual and mythological animals side-by-side, including many labelled ‘monsters’, with little distinction between the real and the imaginary. Six international exhibitors have responded to this and other volumes in the library’s collection with new works incorporating drawing, painting, textiles, robotics and artists’ books, considering where the idea of the monstrous sits within themes of history, mythology and 21st-century life.
The Portico Library’s first Secretary, Peter Mark Roget, was a medical doctor, inventor, linguist and mathematician. His contribution to the English language is hard to overstate, with over 30 million copies of his eponymous Thesaurus empowering generations since its first publication in 1852. The Thesaurus was designed, in his words, “to facilitate the expression of ideas” and as such has played a significant part in our ability to communicate, and to negotiate the perils and possibilities of language. As part of the library’s 2018 Information is Power project, funded by The Zochonis Charitable Trust, three contemporary artists have created new works based on research into Roget’s legacy – the role of vocabulary in the 21st century; the power of words; the uses and abuses of text and speech.
Sophie Tyrrell is a painter, sculptor and performance artist with a background in theatre and storytelling. Her Magnificent Menagerie of Mrs Strange, a group of larger-than-life wearable artworks created for the National Trust in 2017, comes to The Portico Library this February alongside prints, paintings and researches into the library’s collection. Through books and artworks, Sophie illuminates the links between diverse traditions in myth, folklore and popular culture, exploring the idea of ‘uncivilisation’ and the alternative histories we share across borders and among peoples.
Sculptor and performance artist Nicola Dale enquires into the difference between knowledge and information in this new body of work created for The Portico Library. Developed through research at the Portico, Warburg and John Rylands libraries, this new hybrid piece considers the points at which text, symbol, sign and meaning collide. As we walk, sit and read among a series of mysterious plaster fragments installed throughout the library, we are invited to consider the past, present and future of language, and the parallels between the early modern period and our current digital age.
The Portico Library’s bookshelves and archives are home to more than 25,000 historical volumes across a world of different subjects, containing countless beautiful illustrations and illuminations.
The Portico Library opened its doors in 1806, just months before parliament first voted to abolish the Atlantic Slave Trade. These two events might seem relatively unrelated, but the library’s founding members included both high-profile abolitionists and pro-slavery activists. Although it was not a port city directly involved in the slave trade like Liverpool or Bristol, Manchester’s dramatic growth in population and prosperity in this era was closely linked to slavery, and as a result many Mancunians were passionate supporters of the system, while others were equally committed to its abolition. 'Bittersweet: Legacies of Slavery & Abolition in Manchester' shares the story of the Atlantic Slave Trade and its consequences in Manchester and around the world, with original artefacts, contemporary artworks and new research from The Portico Library, Manchester Art Gallery, Tiwani Contemporary and private collections. This exhibition focuses on the ways in which late Georgian concepts of gentility rested upon the practices and profits of slavery. It also includes works in various media, created by artists of African descent, which dramatise the relationships between “home” and “away,” empire and colony, and slavery and freedom, all topics of constant debate within The Portico Library and on the streets of Manchester at the dawn of the nineteenth century. With Mary Evans, Keith Piper and Lubaina Himid.
Accompanying the 2017 Portico Library Reminiscence Project for people with dementia and their carers, five contemporary artists consider different aspects of ‘memory’. Asia Triennial Manchester Director Alnoor Mitha, Neo Artists’ Maggie Hargreaves, Jameel Prize nominee Saima Rasheed, Bankley Studios’ Stacey Coughlin and Cult Party’s Leo Robinson offer a variety of starting points for thinking about what memory is and the role that it plays in our lives: where it comforts or troubles us; where it motivates us to preserve our world; where it helps to build culture and identity; where it brings us together; where it gives form to our personal stories.
From the ‘Waters of Lethe’ of Ancient Greek myth to Wordsworth’s ‘spots of time’; from intimate Mughal miniatures to the Preservation movement’s founding thinkers, art and literature continually return to themes of memory.
Acclaimed North West photographer Andrew Brooks has explored the hidden spaces of The Portico Library and its collection to create a new site-specific body of work for MANIFEST festival 2017. Running across multiple city-centre venues and forming part of Red-Eye Network's Summer of Northern Photography, this exhibition takes the form of a series of micro-landscapes, all available to buy to support the library.
Cut Cloth is an exhibition, publication and series of workshops that examine the shifting role of textiles within contemporary feminist art practices.
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.
Exhibiting artists: Hannah Hill, Katie Lundie, Rebecca Halliwel Sutton, Sarah-Joy Ford, Sophie King, Eleanor Edwardes, Orly Cogan, Wendy Huhn, Tilleke Schwarz & Bethan Hughes. Contributing writers: Professor Janis Jefferies, Elizabeth Emery, Charlotte Cullen, Dr Julia Skelly, Dr Alexandra Kokoli, Dr Christine Checinska, Gill Crawshaw & Jesse Harrod. The project is led by Sarah-Joy Ford and is kindly supported by Arts Council England.
What is it to read? What is it to write? What is a living collection?
Made in Translation is a collaborative project between craft practitioners and researchers in Manchester Metropolitan University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and The Portico Library. Manchester School of Art and the University’s Manchester Writing School joined colleagues in Humanities to respond to a chosen text or texts. From Captain Cook's travels, to the Shaker movement, hot air ballooning and fern collecting, The Portico Library provided a rich source for creative responses. With new writing and objects, performances and photographs, Made In Translation was not only a presentation of works but also an artist book catalogue.
Carolyn Curtis-Magri's complex and painstaking drawing process reflects the work of crime fiction and forensic science that are her inspiration. She has developed a practice that incorporates elements of criminal investigation with the minutiae of life 'inside'. Her paintings, sculptures and installations draw on Portico Library visitor Thomas De Quincey's 1827 'On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts' and her own observations of imagery including x-rays, polymer chains, scars and fragments of evidence.
