From intimate Olympics installations and football kit retrospectives to off-beat consumerist satire and a purpose-built dinosaur spectacular, Manchester’s August exhibition schedule offers the perfect afternoon sojourn for history buffs, sports fanatics and restless kids alike throughout the final days of summer.
Opening on Wed 5 Jun and running for a year, Manchester Museum’s bold new exhibition Wild explores our fragile but hopeful dynamic with the natural world, taking over the Exhibition Hall with a fascinating examination of the ways in which people around the world are rebuilding our connections with a planet in jeopardy.
Featuring an immersive installation, audio, film and interactive elements, as well as an array of natural history collections and artworks, Wild transports visitors across a captivatingly diverse global topography and a wide array of voices, from Aboriginal elders to academic researchers, to champion the innovative methods used to restore biodiversity and shape a sustainable future environment while challenging how we think about and interact with nature.
Taking over Aviva Studios until Sun 1 Sep, award-winning art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast presents an immersive and deliciously surreal visual extravaganza which digs into grand existential ideas about appetite, desire and our place in the food chain.
Billed as a playful, satirical, all-consuming sensory barrage which blends motion graphics, gaming and cinema, Sweet Dreams invites guests into the kaleidoscopic world of a declining fast food empire from the golden era of child-focused marketing and turbocharged E-numbers. Facing an uncertain future, cynically wacky in-house mascot Chicky Ricky embarks on a quest to discover what people really want, leading visitors on a riotously absurd journey into the bizarre world of modern food production and our consumer impulses.
Book your tickets to Marshmallow Laser Feast’s unmissable exhibition below.
Running until Sat 31 Aug, Manchester Poetry Library’s absorbing new summer-long exhibition Landscapes of Change blends poetry and science to unpack the existential impact of the increasingly urgent climate emergency with a programme of films, multilingual verse, mesmerising illustrations and more, inspired by the curators’ visit to the arctic climes of South Greenland in 2023.
Visitors can explore the ongoing climate crisis and our relationship with the natural world through illuminating research field notes, glacier-inspired films and a stunning collection of panoramic photography.
Opening this August, the blockbuster new dinosaur spectacular Jurassic World: The Exhibition sends visitors back to the prehistoric climes of the Trafford Centre overflow car park with a roar-some jungle experience which recreates scenes from the beloved movie franchise and brings Mancunians face-to-face with the brachiosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus rex and countless other creatures from the mysterious land of Isla Nublar.
Hosted by the Mancunian home of French culture, language and learning throughout the month, a wonderfully curated Olympics exhibition celebrates this year’s Paris games – alongside Manchester’s rich sporting heritage – with an eclectic collection of items including medals, mascots and posters to fascinate history-lovers and athletics fans alike.
Available to visit for the last time this August, the National Football Museum’s summer Pitch Gallery exhibition charts the inspirational story of iconic English kitmaker Admiral, from their modest beginnings in a Leicestershire factory to official shirt manufacturers of England’s men’s team.
Celebrating the pivotal moments in Admiral’s incredible rise through an array of objects, photos and preliminary designs, the exhibition explores the brand’s merchandise revolution as they popularised football shirts among the match-going masses with accessible, appealing fabrics from the seventies to the present day.
- Words:
- Wolf McFarlane
- Published on:
- Tue 13 Aug 2024
Featuring a fascinating collection of objects and stories, the Science and Industry Museum’s major new exhibition Injecting Hope: The Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine celebrates the collaborative innovations of scientists around the world who worked tirelessly to end the pandemic, with inspirational tales of resolve and ingenuity as told through artwork, video and significant items from the initiative, as well as a stirring chronicle of Manchester’s incredible community heroes and the city’s unique journey through lockdown.
Fascinating objects on display include a vial of the first COVID vaccine to be administered worldwide, Andy Burnham’s iconic worker jacket from his defiant media address, a bed from Manchester’s Nightingale Hospital and many more.