REVIEW: Injecting Hope: The Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine brings a poignant, uplifting exploration of courage and community to the Science and Industry Museum

Open to visit from Fri 19 Jul to Sun 17 Nov, the Science and Industry Museum’s major new exhibition Injecting Hope: The Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine explores the Herculean efforts and extensive research behind the discovery of an antiserum for a world-changing virus, alongside the heroics of key workers and ordinary Mancunians who played their part in our city’s struggle during the pandemic. We went down to the museum’s free showpiece installation to discover the scientific work and human stories during the height of COVID-19, and the world-changing breakthrough that saved countless lives.

Upon entering the main space, a series of television screens, images and newspaper headlines transports visitors back to the first stages of lockdown as newsreaders announce the uncontainable spread of the virus, the subsequent closure of all non-essential businesses and the order for all British citizens except for key workers to stay at home, while Joe Wicks leads an indoor exercise routine from his lounge and shoppers line up in partitioned spaces outside a supermarket.

Once through a tunnel of TVs, guests are greeted with a profoundly moving artwork of the COVID pathogen itself, rendered as a set of two-dimensional slides which becomes a 3D model of the original virus. Further inside, an assortment of dioramas display an array of incredible artefacts from the ground-level struggle against the disease, including a bed from Manchester Central’s Nightingale Hospital, a vial of the very first vaccine, various machines used to by scientists and researchers to collaborate and adapt to our changing world, a diagram of global responses to the pandemic and even Andy Burnham’s iconic navy worker jacket, which he wore to deliver his defiant infective against the government’s tier-based measures for Manchester.

Elsewhere, visitors are invited to vote on an interactive system which asks whether they’d be willing to volunteer as test subjects for a preliminary vaccine, while a series of quotes from scientists and public figures outline the unimaginable gravity of our global challenge. An entire wall illuminates the complexity of the virus with a lit replica of the COVID genome, discovered as binary code through the tireless efforts of scientists around the world.

Towards the end, the exhibition celebrates Manchester’s local heroes with walls featuring portraits of of healthcare workers from Ancoats-based Urban Village Medical Practice, who helped to administer the vaccine to those in the city with no fixed address. Finally, a pair of vibrant posters welcomes visitors back to the city, while a large screen plays a broadcast charting Manchester’s pandemic story through news items and stirring personal testimonies.

To book tickets for Injecting Hope: The Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine, click below.