Spinning A Yarn

Spinning a Yarn is a major outcome of an on going ten-year research project in Manchester.

Through the production of a series of site-specific multimedia exhibitions and performances this research focussed on the ecology and evolution of the city of Manchester and its inhabitants. This work innovated new forms of social engagement and encounters for the public, taking narratives of site, work and identity as a central part of the research process as means to generate new experiential and educational forms for audiences at each venue.

As the work directed the audience to move from one site to another in both a real time experience of architecture and its multiple representation including a digital intervention into the Royal Mills’ residents’ website it is vital that the importance of location, medium and experience are fully understood.

A major focus for the project was the question of the regeneration, transformation and use of specific buildings that make up the historic fabric of the city. The research involved a collaborative process of engagement with the three significant sites for this inquiry. Here it explored the shifting economies of a city as it has moved from industrialist Fordism to a ‘lifestyle economy’ of loft apartments and the mobile technologies of a post-Fordist urban landscape.

The research developed sites of production, consumption and display in two significant museums and galleries in Manchester through exploration of their collections. Methods employed were site responsive performance and performance for video. The research process involved an architectural re-configuration of space in each venue to produce a new layered configuration of time as we understand it, as a means to interrogate and re-present practice-based interpretations of these histories.

These methods generated new possibilities for the public’s interaction with historical narrative through the presentation of the resulting artifacts and video work.