Manchester City of Literature Exhibition

About

Throughout the whole of February and March, Manchester City of Literature will have an exhibition available to celebrate International Mother Language Day, showcasing our international connection to the other UNESCO Cities of Literature and celebrating Manchester’s work at home.

The exhibition is FREE and is situated in the Manchester Histories Hub on the Lower Ground Floor of Manchester Central Library. Drop in any time during February and March to see these amazing exhibits.

AL-USRA WAL-SUFRA: FAMILY AND FEASTS

There is an exciting exhibition from Ali Al-Jamri, Manchester Multilingual City Poet, who worked with artist Rosie Stanley to create a dollhouse to inspire writing for last summer’s Liverpool Arab Arts Festival. The dollhouse was to provide inspiration for young people from two Arabic Saturday schools to read poetry and write their own in Arabic and English. The poems you will see in the dollhouse at the exhibition are all written by children at the Liverpool Arabic Centre and Manchester Arabic School.

LA VILLE D’APRÈS: VISIONS ARTISTIQUES DE NOTRE FUTUR URBAIN

In 2020, the hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic across the world’s population stimulated discussion about how cities would function post-COVID-19. Angoulême in France, a sister UNESCO City of Literature with a rich history of celebrating comic books and graphic novels, launched a competition to find those visions, hopes and fears of a post-COVID world from other UNESCO cities. 

For International Mother Language Day, ten entries have been collated from other UNESCO Cities of Literature, along with a brief insight from the artists about their work. 

MULTILINGUAL FILM EXHIBITION

A playlist of films from Manchester and other sister UNESCO Cities of Literature will be shown, including the ‘Made in Manchester’ poem based on Zahid Hussain’s poem, comprising of 65 languages, and different translations of Manchester Multilingual Poets, Anjum Malik’s ‘This Here’ and Ali Al-Jamri’s ‘In Prisms of Knowledge’. 

Outside of Manchester, we will be playing films from Nottingham, Tartu and Reykjavik, all UNESCO Cities of Literature. 

WORDS FROM THE CHILDHOOD HOME: A CHAIN POEM FOR INTERNATIONAL MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY 2023*

‘Words From the Childhood Home’ is a brand new, exciting, multilingual chain poem written by nominated poets representing UNESCO Cities of Literature to celebrate International Mother Language Day 2023. 

Manchester City of Literature invited our fellow UNESCO Cities of Literature to nominate a poet to respond to Anjum Malik, a Manchester Multilingual City Poet who writes in Urdu and English. 

*From Monday 20th February

For full details of the exhibition, click here.

For the full line up of events for International Mother Language Day 2023, click here.