The Whitworth’s Visitor Team got out and about for a spot of culture across Manchester’s other cultural institutions during the spring months. Today we hear from Jason, Rosie, and Oliver as they tell us about some of their favourite aspects of the institutions that they visited. We hope these inspire you discover some favourites of your own!

Poster for Prof. Stephen Hawking’s Time Travellers invitation, Science and Industry Museum

When someone mentions the late Professor. Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), I think of black holes, space time and the Simpsons. He had a simple, yet complex goal in life – to obtain a complete understanding of the universe. His research explored how the universe worked, including the discovery that black holes emit heat and radiation, coined Hawking radiation (Source: University of Cambridge website).

Now most of us have likely pondered whether time-travel is possible. Professor. Stephen Hawking, on the other hand, came up with an experiment to test that theory. On 28th June 2009, Professor. Stephen Hawking hosted a welcome party with food and champagne for time travellers. The interesting part was that he didn’t send out invitations (image above) until after the party had concluded. As expected, no one turned up. He had hoped that his invitations would extend into the future where someone would travel back in time and attend.

For now, at least, the experiment shows no signs of time travellers… or could it be that someone did visit and a tear in space time caused a black hole to form in between them, absorbing the light and causing the visitor to be invisible (Simpsons reference), but who knows for sure! – Jason

Out of The Crate: Investigating the Sculpture Collection, Manchester Art Gallery

I personally liked the eclectic nature of this room. The fact that it was a non-curated space meant that the viewer could independently make connections between the objects on display, and allowed unusual or unseen items from the collections to be showcased.

I also liked the handleable object list, available for visitors to use to help them navigate the space. This, along with the decision to display the objects as though they were tagged and shelved in a storeroom, really gave the feeling that we were getting a peek backstage into the way the gallery operated. This would be exciting to engage with for any wannabe curators/conservators, as well as creatives whose practice focuses on collecting found objects.

Additionally, this room was part of an ongoing project to digitise access to the collections. Digital access to information is super important to accommodate a wide range of access needs. Lots of people dropped these types of initiatives after lockdown, so it is great to see that this is still something that the gallery is committed to. It would have been beneficial to have interactive screens in the space to engage with this digital archive and bring this project to life. – Rosie

The Derek Jarman Pocket Park, Manchester Art Gallery

The Derek Jarman Pocket Park at Manchester Art Gallery was designed as part of the Derek Jarman exhibition “Protest” by volunteers from the Pride in Ageing programme at the LGBT Foundation, artist Juliet Davis-Dufayard, and garden designer Leon Davis. Inspired by Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and its garden in Dungeness, the park and its shelter borrow the site’s colour scheme and contain some of the plants outlined in Jarman’s writings about the garden, an important source of solace in his final years. Jarman moved to Prospect Cottage in 1986 and lived there until his death in 1994.

‘My garden is a memorial, each circular bed a dial and a true lover’s knot — planted with lavender, helichrysum and santolina’, he wrote in Modern Nature. A homage to his writing, the pocket park provides a site to remember the work and activism of a figure who shaped the lives of many members of Manchester’s LGBT community. Like the luscious garden amid the barren landscape of Dungeness, the pocket park provides a moment of respite from the concrete drabness of central Manchester. It encourages biodiversity with its varied and resilient plant life and contains an extensive irrigation system which re-uses rainwater. – Oliver