The Modern Art of Manufacture

A duo of 30 x 30 cm designs. A so-called love letter to Manchester.

Former capital of Lancashire, Manchester has long-served as prototype. The birthplace of the industrial revolution, the city's history and contemporary culture are inextricably linked with that of industrial development and decline. With the death of industrial Manchester came the birth of modernism and new cultural forces. From Hulme Crescents and a gargantuan Arndale centre, to the expansive UMIST campus, Manchester's modern and brutal architecture find representation in this work, always within the wider context of a city bound by industry.

Shown as part of La Mercè festival on the 25th September 2025.

Background

I was among the "emerging Manchester creatives" kindly selected to be apart of MCRBCN, an international exhibition bringing together the work of designers in Manchester and Barcelona.

What I chose as the focus for the work - two square sides of a cube to be exhibited at La Merce festival - was architecture, specifically that of industry, modernism and decay. What I've attempted to address through these designs, representative of the raised walkways of Hulme Crescents and chamfered edges of Manchester Arndale, is a modernist rebirth cut short, maybe ill from the start.

Manchester was the first modern industrial city, with great consequences for the region and planet. Deindustrialisation in the mid-century provided a misguided opportunity wrought in capitalist modernism. Capitalism could not sustain modern ideals, and so we have been left stranded with the rotting corpses of industry and modernism in its co-option. Is is this obstructed future which I argue for.