Housing a theatre, cinema and art gallery, HOME Manchester is a major new arts centre in the north west. In 2012, two of the city’s best-loved cultural institutions, Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company, merged to form the Greater Manchester Arts Centre. Soon afterwards in 2015, the company moved into a purpose-built premises under the name of HOME, a new international centre for contemporary visual art, theatre and film.
The vision for this new venture was to continue and build on the legacy of its parent organisations while expanding its international reach. With two theatre spaces and five cinemas, HOME seeks to produce and host outstanding, challenging and provocative work, and its gallery has become one of Manchester’s primary spaces for contemporary visual arts.
Check out the film at the bottom of the page for an introduction to the range of work put on by HOME this year.
Community spirit
Before HOME was formed, both Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company enjoyed strong relationships with the local area, providing a platform for talent from Manchester as well as bringing broader cultural experiences into the heart of the city.
Visitors became loyal members, and the sense of community was tangible. For HOME, as its name suggests, it is important to retain this valuable sense of community; at the core of its remit is to present “the world, seen through Mancunian eyes”.
Emoji-inspired art: Rachel Maclean's Wot u :-) about?
This year, HOME hosted the Manchester edition of Scottish artist Rachel Maclean’s touring exhibition Wot u :-) about?, an installation featuring an array of grotesque, emoji-inspired creatures and internet-addicted rats.
In the trailer below, you can get a sense of the grimly funny characters she created for the exhibition, fusing the cuddly and the creepy in a truly unsettling imagined world.
In an interview with the team at HOME, Maclean talks about the process of making the work – and why she decided to personally play every single role in the films that form part of the installation. The choral voices emanating from the futuristic creatures epitomise the blending of high and low influences within the work, further underlined by Maclean’s straightforward explanation of the piece.
Find out more in the interview below.