The best: Exhibitions to see in Manchester

Worn showcases the breadth of Manchester City Galleries’ fashion and dress collection through a ‘slow fashion’ lens. The exhibition highlights pieces that have been mended, altered, customised and recycled, revealing evidence of wear and examining the longevity, preservation and consumption of clothing and the notion of value through human connection, history, memory and storytelling.

Bolton Museum hosts a touring photography exhibition marking 25 years since the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.

KFOR and Kosovo +25 is a powerful exhibition featuring more than 40 photographs by documentary photojournalist Nick Sidle, who was embedded with KFOR units during the early stages of the mission in 1999–2001.

Bolton is the latest venue to host the exhibition, which was first presented in 2024/25 at the Tower of London, National Memorial Arboretum, National Museum of Kosovo, Cardiff Castle, the House of Commons, and NATO HQ; and continues to tour across the UK.

After nearly a decade in the city, Saul Hay Gallery has sadly announced it will be closing its Castlefield gallery, though it softens the sad news by promising a ‘bold new chapter’.

The gallery will depart its current premises following a landmark final exhibition, which will feature 100 artists.

10×10 invites 50 artists from Saul Hay’s past and present to create a piece of work measuring just 10x10cm. Each of these 50 artists will also invite a new artist, one who has never shown at Saul Hey before, to join the show.

Lowry 360 offers the chance to immerse themselves in the sights and sounds of LS Lowry’s iconic work, Going to the Match.

Created in collaboration with Barcelona’s renowned Immersive studio, Layers of Reality, visitors will be surrounded by a creative exploration, in super-high resolution, of a painting that ‘celebrates the excitement, anticipation, and ritual of going to a football match on a Saturday afternoon’.

An exhibition of portraits and interviews by photographer Steve Reeves highlights personal histories of older members of the LGBTQ+ community with lived experience before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Originally launched as part of Pride in Trafford, the collection will remain on display at Waterside Arts until August.

Using contemporary artefacts, photography and poetry, the Working Class Movement Library explres the 1984/85 Miners’ Strike. Photographs were taken by John Harris, who operated ‘behind the lines’ during the dispute, capturing events from the strikers’ viewpoint. Almost all the poems were written by women during the time, many of the them miner’s wives, and published in works now in the library’s archive. Together they provide a powerful insight into the strike from the perspective of those who were there.

Billed as the ultimate gaming experience, Power Up at the Science and Industry Museum invites guests to immerse themselves in the best video games from the last five decades. With more than 150 consoles to try from across the generations, there’s something for everyone, from Sonic to Street Fighter and Mario to Minecraft, plus a selection of games created in Manchester.

Manchester’s hands-on Victorian house experience, celebrating the life and legacy of Elizabeth Gaskell and her family through historically restored rooms, hosts a small exhibition of textile work created by the Trailblazing Stitching group.

The work on display in The Bronte Room has been created over several years for International Women’s Day projects, and includes banners and tapestry hoops that celebrate trailblazing women connected with Greater Manchester.

Originally launched to mark the reopening of the Pankhurst Centre, the Grade II* listed former home of Emmeline Pankhurst, At Home with the Pankhurst Family delves into the lives, legacies and the stories that led each to become fierce campaigners for women’s rights. The exhibition looks at both influences from within the family and the wider city which they called home.

Common Ground is an exhibition by Manchester Met graduates Abbie Fowler, Freya Boothroyd and Joab Harrison. This installation explores the Peak District National Park, its archaeology, geology, history, heritage and sensory qualities.

A collaborative and personal response to this unique landscape, Common Ground invites audiences to connect with nature in the midst of a global climate crisis. The group’s work draws on the Peak District’s two main rock basins: the White Peak (Carboniferous limestone) and the Dark Peak (coarse sandstone, known as millstone grit).

City of Making brings together work from the University Art Collection, material from the University Archives, and new work by staff from the School of Art Media and Creative Technology. Created to celebrate Salford’s 100th anniversary, the collection is a homage to the role of makers and making in the city’s past and present.

The act of making acts as the basis for the exhibition, with prints, sculpture, drawing and mixed media works all exploring the act in different and unique ways.

Featuring works by Simeon Barclay, Denzil Forrester, Joy Labinjo, Ryan Mosley, Abigail Reynolds, Bridget Smith, and major new commissions by Rowland Hill, Chris Paul Daniels, and Ulla von Brandenburg, Curtain Up investigates the intersection between theatre and art, exploring how visual artists have sought to capture the shared anticipation, heightened emotions and communal energy of being in an audience.

The collection considers live performance, music and other art forms as experiential moments, shaped by three key elements: space, event, and audience.

Out Here brings together artists Ashleigh Beattie, Shezad Dawood, Emelia Hewitt, Steve Sutton, Adam Rawlinson, and Keziah Thomas-Mellor, who explore our relationship with nature through drawing, film, painting, performance, photography, prints, sculpture and site-specific artwork. Their practices are grounded in researching the interaction between the human and non-human, often spending time going out into nature or working directly with natural materials.

The People’s History Museum documents and celebrates the revolutionaries, reformers, workers and voters who have shaped Manchester and beyond. Gallery One hones in on the period between Peterloo and post-war, while Gallery Two shares stories from post-war to the present day.

Recoverist Curators at The Whitworth invites a selection of people in recovery from substance abuse to re-narrate artworks from the gallery’s collection through a recoverist lens, sharing their aspirational stories of hope, fear, desires and dreams. Recoverist Curators supports Manchester-based visual arts charity, Portraits of Recovery, and the Whitworth’s collective mission for art as a means for positive social changetwo

Manchester Museum has opened ‘Africa Hub’, a new type of space that exposes the information the Museum does not know about the African collections it cares for.

Many of the collections on display have sat in storage for years, key details absent from their object labels, highlighting the gaps in museum records. In many cases, all that is known about the objects is the name of the donor or the institution from which they were acquired.

By taking an honest approach to the gaps in its knowledge, Manchester Museum says it hopes to start a process through which it can better understand the African collections it cares for and make collective decisions on how they can best inspire future generations.

Spies, Lies and Deception is a free, family-friendly exhibition at IWM North about deception and espionage from the First World War right through to the present day.

Visitors can explore how audacious plots of deception have changed the course of conflict and the lives of those involved. The exhibition will cover the role of deception, how it was uncovered and the costs of being both the deceiver and the deceived.

In Cosmic Titans, research and artistic expression interweave to create a curated exhibition of sculptures and photography, commissioned from artists in collaboration with The University of Nottingham.

Each artist has spent time working with world-leading scientists observing laboratory research in areas such as gravitational waves, black holes, dark matter, and the early universe.

For the very first time, Cosgrove Hall Films’ internationally acclaimed animation collection will go on permanent display in a new, purpose-built space at Sale Library.

Sale’s Waterside is proud custodian of the collection, which celebrates a unique chapter in British animation film and TV history featuring much-loved and iconic characters created by the award-winning Manchester studio.

The Science and Industry Museum has unveiled details of its next major exhibition, Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos. Opening in February 2026, the museum will invite visitors to explore the wonders of the Solar System, venturing through a series of cosmic zones, walking in the shoes of astronauts, exploring the life-giving energy of the Sun, marvelling at mysterious moons and discovering far-off weird worlds.

Fresh off the back of the new BBC Children’s and Education TV Show, Horrible Science, the exhibition will encourage visitors to ‘do science the horrible way’ and join both scientists and supervillains to unveil the secrets of space.

The Manchester Open makes a much-anticipated return to HOME this June. Taking place every two years, the celebration features artworks from people across Greater Manchester of all experience levels, including first-time artists and enthusiastic amateurs, as well as emerging talent and established professionals.

elected by a panel consisting of art experts and community representatives, the artwork on display represents artists from across all of Greater Manchester’s buroughs and includes works in the categories of ceramics; digital / moving image; drawing; print; painting; photography; sculpture / installation; and textiles.

In what is the Whitworth’s first exhibition dedicated to Japanese prints in over 100 years, Beneath the Great Wave presents iconic artworks by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) in an exploration of the evolution of traditional ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings.

The Portico has announced details of a brand-new exhibition shaped by the various magical factors that unite to create a historic literary landmark.

Everything and Nothing: What makes a 220-year-old library? uses new archival finds to explore the idea of The Portico as a box that holds more than two centuries’ worth of memories, and a place to imagine what a library could be like in the future.

Kids and grown-ups alike are invited to discover the fascinating connection between football and the human body in a brand-new exhibition at the National Football Museum.

Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Goals explores the science behind movement, the stories that shape identity and the joy of football fandom through hands-on play, sensory moments and incredible objects.

esea contemporar presents Two Improvisations, the first UK institutional solo exhibition by Chris Zhongtian Yuan. Born in Wuhan and based in London, Yuan is an artist and filmmaker who works across video, sound, performance, and sculpture. Approaching film with architectural and musical sensibilities, Yuan uses improvisation and storytelling to explore how personal histories, subcultures, and marginalised communities sit within broader political, cultural and institutional narratives.

History, power and empire collide in a major new exhibition by world-leading artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Ai Weiwei: Button Up! confronts 200 years of turbulent world history in this vast new exhibition, which centres on two major new commissions created especially for Aviva Studios, one of which will be his largest 2D artwork to date, made from over a million toy bricks.