The Songs The Morning Sang

Andrew Brooks and Ian McMillan

Free entry

Thursday 5 June to Saturday 27 September 2025

Exhibition preview on Thursday 5 June at 6 - 7pm. Free, Book here

The Songs The Morning Sang is an exhibition by and collaboration between poet Ian McMillan and photographer Andrew Brooks. They explore the streets where they live in the early morning to capture some of the strangeness and beauty of the everyday world. 

Inspired by Ian’s tweets about his early morning strolls around Darfield in South Yorkshire, Andrew photographed the streets around New Mills in Derbyshire where he lives. Ian then created new writing to sit alongside these photographs, which bring together imagined narratives and imagery to these everyday scenes.

They have also created artworks based on the Portico nineteenth-century collection of books, mainly from the Natural History section. Using replicas of cut up images and words together from various books to create new ideas and connections.

In this exhibition, there will be a range of books on show around natural history, sleep and how we look at the world, including Robert Macnish (1830) The Philosophy of Sleep, Henry E. Roscoe (1869) Spectrum Analysis and more.

This project was Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Exhibition enquiries

Please contact Apapat at engagement@theportico.org.uk