Four months of Manchester street art

The street art scene in Manchester city centre has been sadly lacking over the last several months, with very little new stuff around – even the regularly repainted advertising walls have been left blank for several weeks on end – so I’ve accumulated all the artworks I’ve found since early September 2023 into one collection.

The first few were found under the bridge at one of the tram stops on the line to MediaCity and judging by the grubby state of them they have been there for quite a long while. The face on the left was under a bridge on the Bridgewater Canal at Castlefield, the other face was in a back street near Stevenson Square and a couple of paste-ups were hiding in a corner near the police museum.

The Actimel bottle stuck to the advertising wall literally gave a new dimension to the product ad, in Chinatown a community art project was brightening up various spaces and by early December Stevenson Square was looking very festive with artwork by Hammo, artist in residence at Fred Aldous art and craft shop.

Not exactly street art, the next one was a moving digital display in the window of a Northern Quarter office block – I spent several minutes watching the pink and green trams running backwards and forwards but getting a photo of both of them in the right place at the right time wasn’t easy. There was no clue to what the following one was advertising, the wording underneath just said ”express yourself” so it could have meant anything, however the final one needed no explanation.

So there you have it, a collection of street art from early September to late December 2023. Returning to the city centre only a few days ago on a totally unrelated matter I came across five new artworks which have only recently been done so hopefully it won’t be too long before I find some more to add to the start of this year’s collection.