Regeneration

In between all the shopping, eating and drinking, we managed to fit in a spot of culture. When I say 'fit in', it was more of a case that we got to the end of the shopping street and saw the above building, and wondered what it was. Believe me, it's more impressive in reality, looking like a huge perspex tower block, so, we simply had to explore.

It turned out to be Urbis, a gallery and exhibition space, built as part of the redevelopment of Manchester city centre after the IRA bomb ten years ago. The most moving exhibition was 'Every Cloud', a video and installation piece giving people's recollections of the explosion, but also reflecting that the horror of that day was also an opportunity for urban regeneration, and a demonstration of the sheer determination of the people of the city to come back bigger and better than before. I was also very moved by the 'paper cloud' an artwork constructed from letters written by the children of the city, rising from an ariel photo of the area devastated by the blast. Its simple beauty seemed to me to say a lot about the human spirit.