Continuing my walk round Manchester city centre this week with another collection of street art and quirky bits photographed two weeks ago, and on the edge of the Northern Quarter not far from Piccadilly Station I came across an artwork which was so long I couldn’t get all the detail in one shot.
In October 2018 the international arts and homelessness movement With One Voice, founded by Streetwise Opera, collaborated with American community muralist Joel Bergner to produce the huge mural. Known as The Doodle On Ducie Street it depicts a homeless man flying from hardship to a better future and led by Joel, who drew the initial design on the wall, it was created by over 30 artists who were, or had been, homeless in Manchester.
My quest took me away from the NQ for a while and a few streets behind Piccadilly Gardens I found a design on a wall in China Town, then my feet led me to the Gay Village in the Canal Street area. To be honest I wasn’t terribly impressed with the area as a whole, but with its rainbow colours in various places Canal Street itself was bright enough and just one street behind it I did find some artwork.
In September 2014 a huge mural was painted on the side wall of the Molly House bar on Richmond Street. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries ‘Molly-house’ was a term used for a meeting place, generally a public house, tavern or coffee house, for gay men and cross-dressers. Honouring the city’s most famous gay people the mural on the present day Molly House features drag act Anna Phylactic, feminist Emmeline Pankhurst, drag queen Foo Foo Lamarr, fashion designer Quentin Crisp and computing pioneer Alan Turing.
Killing two birds with one stone, as well as street art I was also looking for something else which will feature in a future post so my quest took me briefly towards Manchester Cathedral before I headed through the very deserted Arndale shopping centre back to the NQ.
Another fabulous collection of your photos of street art. The mural by the homeless artists is wonderful. Interesting art from the Gay Village. I saw in the news this week that Alan Turing features on the new fifty pound note due to be released on his birthday in June. I don’t think I’ve ever had a fifty pound note so no worries about spending the old paper ones 🙂
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The homeless artists’ mural is brilliant, I don’t know how long it is but it stretches almost from corner to corner of a block. First impressions of Canal Street in ‘the village’ were that it was a bit of a dump – a narrow street overshadowed by old multi-storey mills being turned into apartments and office blocks it was saved only by the bright rainbow colours in many of the bars. It was a dull cloudy day though so maybe it would look nicer in the sunshine 🙂
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What always strikes me when you do a post like this is how much incredible talent there is, much of which will most likely never be named or properly recognised.
From someone who can barely draw a recognisable straight line, I am always in awe of those who create such beauty. Once again, thanks for sharing some fabulous artwork which I would never see if it wasn’t for your explorations 👏 🙂
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I’ve never been able to draw or paint so I often wish I had the talent that some of these people have.
Art doesn’t always have to hang on a gallery wall and for someone who doesn’t ‘do’ cities I find that searching these things out is quite an enjoyable experience. While many large pieces stay around for several years a lot of the smaller stuff is changed after a while so it won’t be long before I’m back there again to see what’s new 🙂
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Lots of variety here, Eunice. Some of the portraiture is rather cruel but it certainly tells the story of the city. I’d hate to be homeless in Manchester. Or anywhere, come to that! 😦 😦
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So would I Jo 😦 I’ve just been Googling street art in Liverpool and it seems there’s lots of good pieces there so that may very well be my next venture 🙂
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I love the concept and the execution of the homeless mural. Another great collection – seems like no wall in Manchester is unpainted!
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I love the homeless mural, it’s so well done, but I wouldn’t have known what it signified if I hadn’t researched it after I found it. That’s the trouble with a lot of this stuff, the individual murals obviously have some meaning and reason behind them – like the guy with his hand over his face – but without an explanation on the artworks themselves how does anyone know? I don’t try to analize though, I just enjoy them for what they are and the photo opportunities they provide 🙂
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There’s certainly no shortage of street art in Manchester. So many talented artists. I like the Molly House mural and of course The Doodle of Ducie Street, it incorporates so many individual elements in the overall design.
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The city certainly does have a wealth of street art on its walls and shutters. It’s possible to book a guided street art tour for about £10 but I suspect it probably only takes in the ‘best bits’, where a lot of murals are tucked away down narrow side streets and back alleys where many people wouldn’t think of going – I covered a lot of ground in four hours and was surprised at how much I found that I hadn’t seen before 🙂
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A wonderful collection of images. It is not easy to get such good pictures of street art, especially when it is so high up. I’ve really enjoyed watching RuPaul’s Drag race this year – even not being able to get the catchy UK Hun song out of my head was good.
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I’ve just got back from another Manchester trip, I went to photograph a new artwork of Captain Tom Moore, it was only completed on Wednesday so I wanted to get it while it’s still new – it’s an incredible likeness and well worth seeing. I also went looking for your green lady but couldn’t find it anywhere so it must have disappeared since you photographed it 😦
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Gosh Eunice, what an amazing and intriguing collection of street art – wonderful and all is such good condition!
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Thanks for your comment Emma, I’m glad you like the street art. This is the third in a series of four street art posts written in the last three weeks, the recent one being today after another trip to Manchester yesterday, when I photographed a brilliant mural of Captain Tom Moore which was only completed a few days ago. I love photographing street art and hope to be able to get to Liverpool soon as I know there’s a lot there 🙂
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That’s fantastic Eunice. Your photos are so vivid! 🌞
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Thank you 🙂 It’s nice to know all my leg work isn’t in vain 😉
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Am glad I ran into your blog at Restlessjo. Am a painter and not a fan of most street art, but this can hardly be called “graffitti! Great idea to give homeless artists a chance to display their art! Jesh
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Thanks for your comment Jesh and welcome to the Mouse House. I think there’s a world of difference between graffiti (the scrawled stuff) and proper street art and some of the pieces I’ve found in Manchester have been done by some very talented artists. A while ago I featured two huge double murals done by the same artist but a year or so apart – if you’d like to take a look you can find Tyger Tyger at the bottom of this post –
and the other one here –
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