The Printworks Big Art project is a collaboration between the popular city centre destination and well-known event producers Wild in Art – who famously brought ‘Bee in the City’ to Manchester back in 2018, as well as a number of other prominent art installations – and its looking for local artists to create a permanent “larger-than-life” visual public artwork inside the venue.
“The commissioners are looking for a stunning, visually engaging artwork that will light up the public space,” Printworks explained.
Open to all artists looking to get involved, the commission will need to reflect Manchester’s vibrant and inclusive soul, and will be displayed ceiling-high within Printworks across a 215m² centrally-located feature wall, where over eight million visitors will see it each year.
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Read more: Landmark Manchester venue Printworks to get a £22 million refurbishment
The Printworks Big Art project is in collaboration with popular event producers, Wild In Art / Credit: Printworks
Speaking on the launch of the new competition, Marnie Ahmed – spokesperson for Printworks – said: “Manchester is renowned for its creativity, with people from all walks of life displaying their talents in many forms, [so] we’re delighted to be supporting artists and offering them a once in a lifetime opportunity to have their work permanently displayed at our iconic venue.”
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Ben Reed from Wild in Art added that it’s “a fantastic opportunity for any artist to express their appreciation for Manchester”.
Iconic DJ, musician, record producer, and competition judge Norman Cook – a.k.a Fatboy Slim – said: “Creativity is the beating heart and soul of Manchester and I’ve always enjoyed playing in the city [so] this is an exceptional opportunity for artists and creatives to showcase their work and I’m delighted to be part of it.
“I can’t wait to see the design submissions.”
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Printworks’ new £22 million refurbishment is said to be part of the venue’s trajectory towards international recognition as a “pioneering, round-the-clock entertainment destination”, and work is anticipated to begin very soon.
The venue will remain fully open and trading throughout the refurbishment, with the works said to be structured to “ensure minimum disruption”.
Printworks’ new £22 million refurbishment is said to be “transformational” / Credit: Printworks
Fancy leaving your mark on the venue’s new look then? Entries to the Printworks Big Art competition are now open, with a Stage 1 deadline of 5pm on 14 March 2022, before Stage 2 will see the shortlisted artists’ concepts displayed at Printworks for feedback from the public.
To apply, artists must complete an online submission – which is available on the Printworks website – and email it over to [email protected].
Submissions must include a CV, examples of past work, and a short statement of interest in response to the brief which details the proposed artistic style and general concept overview in no more than 400 words.
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You can find more information via the Printworks website here.
Featured Image – Printworks
Art & Culture
Manchester’s historic connections to slavery will be at the heart of a major new exhibition
Emily Sergeant
Manchester’s historic connections to slavery are to be explored during a major new exhibition coming soon to the city.
The Science and Industry Museum, in the heart of our city centre, is already known and loved for telling the story of the ideas and innovations that transformed Manchester into the world’s first industrial city.
But now, a new free exhibition is set to “enhance public understanding” of how transatlantic slavery actually shaped the city’s growth.
Produced by the Science and Industry Museum, in partnership with The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme, and developed with African descendent and diaspora communities through local and global collaborations, this landmark project will put Manchester’s historic connections to enslavement at the heart of a major exhibition at the museum for the first time.
Featuring new research, it will also explore how the legacies of these histories continue to impact Manchester, the world, and lives today.
Set to open in early 2027, the exhibition will run for a year in the museum’s Special Exhibitions Gallery.
Alongside that hub at the Science and Industry Museum itself, the project is also set to have a collaborative city-wide events programme, and a lasting legacy – with a new permanent schools programme, and permanent displays in the future too.
As mentioned, the new exhibition is part of The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme, which is a 10-year restorative justice project launched in 2023.
Manchester’s historic connections to slavery will be at the heart of a major new exhibition / Credit: Science Museum Group Collection
Through partnerships and community programmes, the project aims to improve public understanding of the impact of transatlantic slavery on the UK’s economic development, and its ongoing legacies for Black communities – with a strong focus on Manchester, the city in which The Guardian was founded back in 1821.
The museum’s existing gallery content and ongoing work around sharing the inextricable links between Manchester’s growth into an industrial powerhouse and a textile industry reliant on colonialism and enslavement will be developed through the project.
Through a “collaborative re-examination of the past”, the exhibition will also share a more inclusive history of a city that prides itself on being at the forefront of ideas that change the world.
It’s opening at the Science and Industry Museum in early 2027 / Credit: Science and Industry Museum
Speaking ahead of the exhibition’s arrival in early 2027, Sally MacDonald, who is the Director of the Science and Industry Museum, says: “This will be an exhibition about important aspects of our past that are profoundly relevant to the world we live in today.
“Revealed from the perspectives of those who experienced enslavement and whose lives have been shaped by its legacies, we will foreground stories of resistance, agency, and skill.
“The exhibition will explore themes of resilience, identity and creativity alongside exploitation and inequality, and will feature a specific focus on the ways that scientific and technological developments both drove and were driven by transatlantic slavery.”
Further details on the project will be announced in due course, so stay tuned.
Featured Image – Science Museum Group
Art & Culture
Better Man has bombed at the box office – but is the Robbie Williams biopic any good?
Danny Jones
So, Robbie Williams’ biopic Better Man has been out for a little while now and the question on many people’s lips – you know, apart from ‘why is he a monkey?’ – is, quite simply, is it any good?
Many of you may have already seen it, others may have absolutely no interest in hearing about Robbie‘s already well-publicised exploits (be they in ape form or otherwise), or maybe you’ve just been waiting to hear whether it’s any good before heading out to the cinema.
Well, if you’re judging it purely by the current headlines circulating online, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s absolute rubbish. So far, Better Man has ‘tanked’ at the box office, making just over $1 million compared to a budget of nearly $110m (£90.8m).
However, given how pivotal the US viewing figures are, a big chunk of the commercial disappointment has come down to Americans largely not knowing who Robbie Williams even is and it’s no surprise that it’s done a little better here in the UK – though still not stellar. But again, ticket sales aside, is it good?
Better Man – Review
I wasn’t sure a (very good) CGI monkey Robbie Williams film was going to be any good either based solely on the trailer, but they nailed it.
*Once again, some spoilers ahead – though it is his life story, so we’re not really spoiling anything…
I’ll start this off by admitting that for all his foibles and controversies of the years, I am a Robbie fan; his music was always on in my house as a kid and well into my teens. Being born in the mid-90s, he was probably one of the first big pop stars to ever enter my world.
Growing up obsessed with football too, a charismatic, mainstream rock and roll-spirited figure in the mainstream who also loved the beautiful game and even took influence from chants heard around the grounds in his songwriting always made him extra appealing to me.
All that is just to say that I’m fully aware there’s probably some bias here, so I’ll still try to be as impartial and ‘objective’ as you can be with a film review. But back to the point, the short answer is yes: it’s good – very good, in my opinion.
If you’re similarly fond of the frenetic, funny and ferocious showman, you’ll obviously have a vested interest in looking back on his career thru a (somewhat simian) Lens, but even if you’re not, I still think you can get a lot of of the film and a greater insight into a captivating life story.
Monkey see, monkey do—make me sad, very sad…
This scene (among many) had us welling up. (Credit: Paramount Pictures)
For starters, put simply: as daft as it may seem, the monkey thing does work. It may come across like a strange gimmick when you first see the trailers but it doesn’t take much digging to realise that there’s quite a well-thought-out three-pronged approach behind it.
One of the first things the 50-year-old singer said on the press tour for this film is that he’s always felt “unevolved” and it’s something that’s brought up a couple of times in the film itself, so making him an ape rather than a modern Homo sapien is one way to way to communicate that.
Plus, not only does it obviously make any sad moments – and there are a lot of them – even more emotional and tear-jerking, especially during the scenes during Robbie’s childhood, but it also plays into the sad reality that he’s felt like a performing monkey for the majority of his life.
When you stop and think about the reasoning behind it feels a lot more considered than on first impression, and it certainly helps you empathise and, more importantly, sympathise with the troubled character you’re seeing on screen.
Robert vs Robbie
A very clever movie poster to boot.
And that’s pretty much the rub right there: this was always going to be at least a somewhat self-indulgent watch, not just because it’s a biopic but because it’s Robbie and that’s what his persona is about – but it is and always has been a performance in every sense of the word and the film does a great job of trying to distinguish ‘Robbie’ from Robert.
From seeing the origins behind being given that name specifically, his younger years and affectionate albeit mostly fraught relationship with his father; how the boom of Take That engulfed his entire world and even more so once he went solo, as well as the version of himself he’s shown to the world for last three decades, it’s clear he’s often struggled to find the line between the two himself.
It’s also very important to state the cheeky, cocksure Robbie Williams you were expecting to watch the rise of throughout this biopic has wrestled with a much lower opinion of himself than you could ever imagine. It’s a driving force behind the film and manifests in all manner of problematic and unpleasant ways, just as it did in real life. You see him see a lot of them in the crowd throughout the duration, in fact.
Because for anyone who isn’t aware, a lot of Robbie’s experiences are problematic and unpleasant; the early days as a boyband commodity, his substance abuse, struggles with mental health and beyond are all laid bare on screen in fairly graphic detail at times. A lot of the situations these issues spring from would feel hard to believe were it not for the fact it’s a true story with very little embellishment, if at all.
Manchester references are a bonus
One of the things that did stand out as a particularly surreal aspect of the film was the handful of references to Robbie’s intersection with Mancunian culture, which simultaneously felt familiar and somehow like going back in time to peep behind the curtain at a world that very few saw first-hand.
Again, the behind-the-scenes examination of how Take That transpired and those very dangerous, inappropriate and frankly unlawful series of events in nightclubs over on the likes of Canal Street feels like a fever dream (as it did for Robbie).
Perhaps the biggest buzz we got was the not-so-surprise appearance by the Gallagher brothers and ‘The Robster’s obsession with Oasis. The look is exactly what you’d expect and Liam‘s accent might not be perfect but it still gave us a thrill without feeling like pointless lip service.
All that being said, is the much-talked Robbie biopic a good enough film to warrant popping out to the pictures? Well, I’d certainly say so. Not only are the visuals and the CGI itself pretty flawless, but the motion capture is done so well that it never felt like I was taken out of the film at any point – even the very particular Stoke and Cheshire accents of Robbie and Gary Barlow are very convincing.
We knew there was going to be lots of humour too but there’s also a lot of impressive stuff the director does that I wasn’t expecting.
One of those is the transitions: there are lots of clever tonal switches done with great camerawork and effects (particularly during one driving sequence and some of the flashback frames) and they really do help covertly shift the mood so some of the darker moments don’t give you full on whiplash.
And lastly, the director’s fingerprints can be felt all over the movie as Michael Gracey’s The Greatest Showman pedigree certainly makes sections of the film feel more like a musical than I was expecting – but in a good way. Big bold cabaret choreography fitting of the man himself.
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After all, we all know most Robbie tunes are bangers but seeing them brought to life in these new and interesting ways really does make Better Man a better film than we’d even hoped for and it’s certainly good enough to be performing a lot better than it is at the box office right now. Maybe give it a go.
As far as I’m concerned, big stunning set pieces like this are just the tip when it comes to what makes the Robbie biopic a good film.
Emily Sergeant -
3rd March 2022 
