From high fashion retrospectives and English landscape icons to prize-winning space photography super-sized science quests, Manchester’s internationally acclaimed museums and galleries host another dizzyingly eclectic programme of exhibitions to satisfy culture vultures of all ages and tastes as we enter the new year in earnest.

Here are some of the best exhibitions around Manchester this February.

Turner: In Light and Shade | The Whitworth | Fri 7 Feb - Sun 2 Nov | FREE

To mark the 250th birthday of English Romantic landscape master JWM Turner, The Whitworth hosts a retrospective of his most remarkable yet overlooked series of landscape prints, the Liber Studorium.

The exhibition will collate Turner’s profoundly evocative Liber prints with a selection of his watercolours from the museum’s collection, alongside loaned works from public and private collections, in a nine-month installation last presented at The Whitworth over 100 years ago.

The Whitworth, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6ER
Movement Through Materiality | Manchester Craft & Design Centre | Until Sat 29 Mar | FREE

Open now until Sat 29 Mar, Manchester Craft & Design Centre’s brand new exhibition Movement Through Materiality showcases an ambitious, innovative and timely collection of works from Manchester School of Art graduates, with a thematic focus on how materials can both impact and be impacted by the environment.

Drawing inspiration from their surroundings, the featured artists utilise the movement of place and person to reflect the harmony of nature and life. Their work conveys messages of urgency and hope, seeking to empower the audience towards a brighter, greener future.

17 Oak St, Manchester M4 5JD
Unpicking Couture | Manchester Art Gallery | Open now until Sun 2 Nov 2025 | FREE

Free to visit throughout the year, Manchester Art Gallery’s chic showcase Unpicking Couture celebrates groundbreaking moments in the history of high fashion.

Told through an array of pivotal pieces which redefined couture across the last century, the collection features unique creations from the history’s most influential designers and fashion houses, including Christian Dior, Azzedine Alaïa, Cristobal Balenciaga, Pierre Cardin, Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto, Bruce Oldfield and Alexander McQueen, as well as a recently restored 1930s silk velvet jacket by Schiapirelli.

Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3JL
Astronomy Photographer of the Year | Jodrell Bank | Until Sun 27 Apr | Free with general admission

Running throughout February and well into spring, Jodrell Bank’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition features some of the world’s greatest space photography, with amateurs and professionals alike turning their lenses towards our grand cosmic tapestry in a mesmerising annual competition.

This year’s winner, Andromeda, Unexpected, is on display alongside esteemed runners up in a gallery of wonder, free to enter with admission.

Bomish Ln, Cheshire, Macclesfield SK11 9DW
Local / National / International | Lowry | Until Sun 16 Feb | FREE

Free to visit until Sun 16 Feb, Lowry’s new exhibition series Local / National / International unites three kindred artists in a trio of concurrent solo showcases, amplifying innovative northern artwork while offering a Salford debut to talented creatives for the first time.

Aliyah Hussain, Paloma Proudfoot, and Renee So all use ceramics as a vehicle for imaginative storytelling, constructing contemporary narratives through objects, tableaus and immersive environments.

Feminist ideas recur throughout, with the artists challenging gender norms and representation in engaging, seductive and often humorous ways.

Lowry, The Quays, Salford M50 3AZ
Echoes | The Portico | Mon 20 Jan - Fri 30 May | FREE

A brand-new exhibition at The Portico unpacks Britain’s complex colonial relations with China and Hong Kong.

Seeking to reclaim longstanding colonial narratives with a focus on Manchester’s Hong Kong and Chinese diaspora, Echoes invites audiences to engage with the library’s book collection through the lens of works by Bruce Lai, Deborah Ng, Jasmine Gardner, Jessie Tam and Yichao Shi, who have come together to reflect on and distil their responses to the archive.

Their art has concentrated examines the retention and adaptation of identity, place and purpose, particularly through language, landscape, and calendar customs such as Lunar New Year celebrations.

57 Mosley St, Manchester M2 3HY
Operation Ouch! Brains, Bogies and You | Science and Industry Museum | Fri 14 Feb - Sun 4 Jan | £10

The Science and Industry Museum’s latest exhibition invites visitors on an immersive super-sized through the six senses.

Operation Ouch! Brains, Bogies and You offers the chance to dive head first into a variety of hands-on experiments that shed light on how our bodies work.

Following the success of Operation Ouch! Food, Poo and You, families with children of all ages are invited on another anatomical adventure packed with brilliant biology and sense-sational science. Get shrunk to microscopic size and embark on a medical mission through the brain of Operation Ouch! host Dr. Chris, discovering more about our senses through all of his fun-filled neural pathways.

Poke around inside a giant eyeball, identify scents in the smell library, bang on a giant eardrum and learn more about our grey matter with interactive games, challenges and fun facts guided by videos and illustrations of Dr. Chris, Dr. Xand and Dr. Ronx.

The Science and Industry Museum, Liverpool Rd, Manchester, M3 4FP
Banner Exhibition 2025 | People’s History Museum | Until Mon 29 Dec | FREE

Curated to recognise over a century of national public fortitude, this year’s Banner Exhibition delivers another sweeping textile timeline of ground-breaking protests and social unity in the long, tireless struggle for the rights we have today.

From historic political trail-blazers to modern ecological movements, the ongoing installation celebrates more than a century of artistic defiance, from trade union placards and Miners’ Strike slogans to more recent campaigns on disability and migrant rights.

Leftbank, Manchester M3 3ER
Words:
Wolf McFarlane
Published on:
Fri 31 Jan 2025