exhibition: 13-17th may

Student work from all 25 events is being exhibited at Cube (Portland Street), which opened on Thursday evening. Wish You Were Here showed t-shirts, postcards, photos and other items from their creative interventions. We even printed the blog out in full- it was 10m long and stretched over the entire room! It is only staying up until Monday so get down and check it out! Thank you to everyone involved!

wish you were here

Emily

swansong

At approximately 3 am we set off, hedge clippers in hand.
With perhaps not the stealthiest of wardrobe choices we started our intervention under cover of darkness (wearing our gleaming white 'ugly duckling' t-shirts)









After battling long and hard with the overgrown foliage (about 45 minutes) we came out triumphant, and settled down to a good 3 hours sleep before our presentation that morning.





Viewing our handywork later that day we were pleased to see the subtle outline of the arrow all the way from the 'manchester wheel', and many intrigued passers by.

hopefully our intervention made people look twice when walking past the river. Wether it is recognised as an important space that could give life back to the city only time can tell.


to be continued... (?)

A day at the beach...

A Day at the Beach

Friday finally came around, after gathering all beach essentials, Deck Chair, Parasol, Paddling pool and lots of sand we arrived at our site.

The site was just off Back Piccadilly, and located itself just opposite a row of bus stops.

We started laying down mats to cover in sand, to avoid tainting the site and allowing for easy removal. The deck chair was out and the beach was taking shape! There were many passers by who stopped to watch, looking very confused, especially as we were wearing sun visors, sunglasses and hula skirts!

Once the beach was set up we took to the streets promoting our beach and handing out flyers, this proved very successful as people who we had handed flyers to visited the beach hours later, which was quite encouraging for us!

So the day went on, and we had many visitors varying from business-men, builders, families etc. But despite this number, the majority of people that came, came to enquire what we were doing or just to look, there were few who actually stopped to sit.

The day came to an end and was successful. The beach created a destination to an ordinarily thoroughfare space, a space that exists simply as a platform for travel from Lever Street to Oldham Street, whilst putting a smile on everybody's face!

Wish you were here!

workshop 4: 10th may

Final day! The groups presented their projects, using a variety of media including photos, maps, videos and installations. All the interventions were demonstrated vibrantly and imaginatively.

feedback!

tommy.

workshop 3: 4th may

All the groups reported about their various consultation activities. They also demonstrated how they had selected a site. This was done as a short presentation by each group to wish you were here as a whole. Then discussions followed with the whole group on the form the interventions may take. Below is an overview of how each group is getting on.

Group 1 – Matt, Jo, Chuanhui, Pete
Site – Ancoats
Ideas – CCTV, public space not being used, figures acting out scenes, looking at animation and journeys to explain intervention.

Group 2 – Becky, Sarah, Cassie
Site – Piccadilly/ Back Piccadilly
Ideas – Manchester has everything apart from a beach, hosting a beach event in an alleyway, they've set up facebook group and event, why don't you join them, asking people to write postcards while at the beach...

Group 3 – Orlando, Tom, Huseyin
Site –Deansgate and Castlefield
Ideas – Empty shop fronts, livening area up, fairground activities, having activities for children, other groups not catered for in the area...

Group 4 – Jordan, Ama, Dael, Charlotte
Site – Northern Quarter
Ideas – confusing signs, getting people to see a different side to the area, maps as activities, picnic, tea...

Each group have to communicate their intervention next week using promotional material including films, posters and postcards and any other appropriate media.

wish you were here? we do!

Emily

???

.......?

Washing Line Effect: T-shirts left to dry.

On Thursday, our group met up early and decided to try and produce a logo for our intervention. Having spoken to the public and received a perfectly good idea.... and also in combination with the holiday programme 'wish you were here,'... we decided to combine a beachy theme with the city to play on the sort of postcard imagery.

Due to the help we had off Nell, we came up with a simple yet effective design for the t-shirts and began to screen print them.

We made stencils for the Beetham tower which were printed in grey first. The process took two people- one to hold down the wooden screen, and the other to press the paint onto the fabric with a 'squidgy.'

Having allowed time to let this dry, we then applied the second stencil in orange paint. This stencil was the silhouette of a beach umbrella and a bucket and spade, placed in the foreground.

Our finished t-shirts now look like this... :)

We are also considering ironing on the phrase 'wish you were here...' and may/may not do this at a later date :)

The t-shirts may give a clue as to what our final intervention might be.

Sarah, Becky, Cassie

Ugly Duckling

The results and feedback from our survey highlighted Deansgate as the most unloved of our 15 spaces, in particular the northern end. The general feeling was that the area is becoming lifeless, with the rising amount of empty shop fronts making it a non place for dust, grime and litter to gather.

When visiting the site, we were struck by how overlooked the River running parallel to Deansgate is, considering how close it is and its importance to the city's history. The River Irwell is now used merely as marketing tool for selling plush "riverside" apartments and apart from the relatively recent trinity footbridge development (used mainly by businessmen) the links from Deansgate are nonexistent.





For our intervention we wanted to draw people from deansgate road to the river, to emphasise the potential this area has and to open it up to the public.

In a utopian view this passage could be restored to its former glory, with lush clear waters passing through rows of crumbling brutalist experiments gone wrong.



In the 19th Century the river held fish and was primarily used as a source of drinking water for the townspeople. The thought of returning to this oasis is an alluring prospect.


To be continued...

screen-printing workshop:29th april

Nell showing us how its done

We learnt a new skill yesterday - screen-printing - taught by the lovely Nell from the Manchester craft and design centre. The key was making a simple design into a good neat stencil. Then we used screens and squeegees to push paint through on to paper and t-shirts. All the designs were ace and some brilliant t-shirts made. I made many posters with “wish you were here” on, they’ll be going up around the school soon. Learning the process and making t-shirts moved everyone’s ideas on for their interventions. Thanks Nell!

Check out her lovely shop- its ace! http://www.nellclothing.co.uk/

Emily

Drawing up designs


Printing the first batch of t-shirts

The key was cutting a neat design to print through

Cutting a very intricate deign of some signs

wish you were here posters

making the t-shirts as a group

one of the final t-shirt designs

Mapping Perspectives of Manchester

During the course of the day willing particpants took part in the task to identify what emotions and feelings they had towards different areas in Manchester. This was to aid our decision of the location of our creative input to the city. The general feeling that came across as areas of enjoyment were in the heart of the city, where as areas to the north east were perceived as far more run down, dangerous and unsafe, as summarised in the diagram below.

Washing Line Effect: Response

After visiting town with washing line and images in hand, the feedback we recieved from the public, kindly stopping to help us with our intervention, was rather impressive. Quite a large percentage of the people stopping on their own accord were of the older generation, interested or possibly just being nosey as to what our line of images was about! Middle-ages males were the easiest to talk to and get useful information out of and eventually, younger females agreed to participate with our project. We analysed the responses with the intention of determining the site for our final intervention; the responses were as follows:

Security Worker, middle-aged male: "I would definitely change the space [Piccadilly Gardens] because of the dirty, high-rise buildings".

Retired, male O.A.P: "I love this image of a park with the river running through where all ages can relax in the summer and on nice weekends...I'd like to Piccadilly Gardens back to how it used to be".

Student, male: "It'd be great to see a nice, big TV area with places to relax, like the one near the wheel but more in the centre and more of a laid back atmosphere for people more my age".

Retired, female O.A.P: "Tennis courts would be a great addition to the centre, open to the public and free of charge, which would encourage a more active lifestyle...a leisure centre for students with a lot of it ourdoors".

Middle-aged male: "A big amusement park is lacking in Manchester! It'd make use of some of the wasted spaces and it'd bring some great fun into the centre".

Retired, female O.A.P: "Maybe some type of community-based projects occupying some of the unused spaces like in some of these images [image: wasteland on outskirts of the city]. I'd recommend brightening up some of these dark alleyways because women at night avoid them for safety...maybe paint the walls bright, playful colours or fit some bright lights there. I love the alleyway in the Northern Quarter covered overhead with the umbrella art".

Two male friends, middle-aged: "Unused spaces made into bridal, cycle or walking paths to make people feel safer".

Young female, student: "I once heard Manchester had everything but a beach, so why not bring a beach to Manchester centre!!".

Middle-aged male: "See all of these pigeons around here, they're everywhere. And we are lacking a good Manchester Zoo. It'd be a great attractive...maybe even a mini zoon...a Pigeon Zoo!".

Two friends, females: "Bring more 'real Manchester' back into the centre, like the Northern Quarter and Aflecks'...I'm not a fan of all these new, modern buildings. It's not what Manchester is about".

From analysing all this data, we felt it was best to look at the least used areas in Manchester, forgotten-about places or avoided places, and places where people may feel uncomfortable. These included areas such as alleyways that may look unsafe at a first glance, or bright, enclosed spaces that are wasted, inbetween high-rise buildings. We settled upon quite a main alleyway just off from Piccadilly Gardens where people would still be near, so it wouldn't be too much of an issue directing people to a random space. Our intervention would be aimed at attracting people to this space they'd usually overlook and provide them with an area that is enjoyable to be in and making them feel relaxed in their own city.

Hook a duck

When first given the assignment we immediately decided to distance ourselves from the typical clipboard and question affair, preferring to think of a way to draw the public towards us without the need to hassle and irritate. Looking at ways to interact with the public we came up with the idea of using the classic fairground 'duck and hook' game, with a few of our own additions to get the opinions and ideas we needed.

What better habitat for our ducks than the ubiquitous public fountain...

The names of 15 areas or places in Manchester were written on the bottom of the ducks, which then had to be hooked and sorted into piles of 'loved' or 'unloved' spaces. After the initial ice breaker we asked the players the reasons behind their choices and got them thinking about any spaces they felt needed a bit of love - our 'ugly ducklings'




Once we had enough information the ducks were left to be found by passers by, with the link to the blogspot marked in pen

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