Reality Hack: Hidden Manchester
2nd December 2008 to 5 July 2009
Iconic buildings and prominent landmarks dominate the character of any city. However, beneath the surface of these modern urban landscapes, there lies a hidden world of concealed spaces, either forgotten over time, or restricted through legislation, that have played a role in making the city into what it is now.
In this much-loved exhibition, photographer Andrew Paul Brooks investigated Manchester’s hidden depths and documented his findings through a series of newly commissioned large-scale photographic works, which used specific photographic techniques to present an ethereal and apocalyptic vision of the city.
Visitors were invited to see well-known spaces as they never had before, as well as some which were hidden beneath the depths of the city, which these photos brought to light. These included Manchester Town Hall’s hidden courtyard underneath the four faces of the town hall clock, the top of the Palace Hotel and the Manchester and Salford Junction Canal Tunnels, which during the Second World War became Manchester’s biggest and safest bomb-shelters.
Brooks’ photography was taken in collaboration with the city’s ‘Urban Explorer’ community whose mission is to reclaim parts of their city by ‘hacking’ into its abandoned spaces without causing damage….and the results were somewhat spectacular….
Media Release
Reality Hack – Hidden Manchester format.pdf – click here to download Reality Hack’s media release
Customer Comments
“I went to see this exhibition on Tuesday and it’s absolutely fantastic. Haunting and evocative, it made me look at my home city in a whole new light. Beautiful work”
- Leah Whitehorse
“I saw the exhibition in the Urbis and it was amazing with the back light as well. All the photos were stunning”
“astonishingly beautiful”
Press Comments
“It’s the detail and atmosphere of the large-scale, brightly lit prints that makes a tunnel under Salford Central station or the roof of the Town Hall somehow so appealing… in terms of showing us areas of Manchester we’d otherwise be ignorant of, Reality Hack certainly succeeds. It’s just that, by making these places look so imposing or unreal, it’s hard to believe that they’re here on our doorstep”
- Aaron Lavery, Metro
“The space is perfect for the exhibition. Perhaps the biggest appeal of these pictures is that they portray places that are undisturbed and under-explored. Looking at them acknowledges childlike fantasies of escaping the crammed city for somewhere where we are free to be ourselves and explore unconstrained. Somewhere to get lost.”
- Natalie Bradbury, Manchester Confidential
