Levenshulme based exhibit leaving at the end of the month
- The exhibit contrasts the change in Manchester culture over the decades
- It has been based in the Station South for the past month
- The gallery will be going on a ‘tour’ of the city
A photography exhibit that has caught the eye of many around Manchester will be moving from its home on Levenshulme.
20 Year Party People, which has been located in Station South café along Stockport Road for the past month, will be departing upon the end of its run next weekend, on Saturday the 25th.
The exhibit
The exhibition is the brainchild of Richard Kelly and Jonny Booth, photographers who found similarities in each other’s work and decided to collaborate. According to Booth the idea came ‘after seeing each others work on Instagram and realising we grew up doing the same stuff in the same places,’ but at different times’ and ‘thought it would be a good idea to put our work together to show how much stuff has changed yet also stayed exactly the same.’
According to Kelly it would be ‘daft’ not to use his and Booth’s work and ‘combine our work and exhibit it, showing how Manchester may have changed in many ways but some things such as Mancs liking to party haven’t’. Kelly, a senior lecturer of Fashion Art Direction at Manchester Metropolitan University, has been a photographer for over 25 years, and expressed his enjoyment for working with the younger Booth, calling him ‘the new improved version of himself’ and that the ‘mantle has been passed on to him.’ Both men have spent most of their careers going around Manchester, capturing its nightlife and music, with their collaboration showing a complete evolution in the city over the course of decades.
Booth also said that the Station South has been a ‘great venue’ and that the response to their work had been great, but they wanted to move it around the city to engage with as many different people as possible around Manchester, whilst including a mix of different areas and cultures.
Where is it going?
With Station South being the second venue to host the exhibit, after New Cross in Ancoats, Kelly described the gallery as being on ‘somewhat of a Manchester tour’. Whilst other stops are still being explored such as Stretford, one confirmed stop of the tour looks set to be Electrik in Chorlton.
The exhibit will arrive in the cafebar on the 18th of July, with a DJ set and opening party. This may well be the last stop of the tour, as Kelly feels that he and Booth will be wanting to ‘work on something new’.
The project, a bridge between two generations of photographers presenting two generations of music and partying, has shown the variety that Manchester has to offer culturally, as well as how it has changed as a city.