Big Ben lands in Manchester for international arts festival

Marta Minujin's sculpture is called Big Ben Lying Down With Political Books

A replica of Big Ben that has been made to look like it has crash landed on its side in Manchester is among the sights that have sprung up at the start of the city's international arts festival.

The 42m (138ft) sculpture in Piccadilly Gardens has been created by Argentine artist Marta Minujin and is covered in 12,000 politically-themed books.

It is "in some ways a response to the tussles and battles between Manchester and London, north and south, over the last year", Manchester International festival director John McGrath said.

The festival takes place every other year - although this year, because of the pandemic, the range of artists who have made it to Manchester in person is less international than usual.

The replica includes a chamber inside where people can watch a short film

Veteran pop artist Minujin has not travelled, and instead guided the construction of her giant installation largely by Zoom. She said she hoped the work could be "a new national symbol".

She has also made a short film that is being screened inside the replica of London's Elizabeth Tower, showing the landmark taking off like a rocket from Westminster and flying north.

Various books with political themes cover the replica tower

The books that coat it range from footballer Marcus Rashford's You Are A Champion to Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, and will be given away to passers by on the festival's closing weekend, 17 and 18 July.

The event finishes the day before all Covid restrictions are expected to be lifted, and this year organisers have put a number of artistic showpieces outdoors around the city.

Thursday's opening event saw 120 local dancers perform a socially-distanced routine along Deansgate as spectators walked the length of the street to view the full work.

Called Sea Change, it was created by French choreographer Boris Charmatz - who quarantined before being able to work on the project, and will quarantine again when he goes home.

Cephas Williams is showing his exhibition Portrait of Black Britain exhibition in the Arndale Shopping Centre

"It's very connected to the moment we're in," he said of Sea Change. "We are starving for partying, for contact, for being together, for enjoying. It's a kind of firework of everything we could do, at fast speed.

"So the choreography is full of energy, of rage, of joy, of sensuality, of craziness. It's a journey for the viewers, and it's a journey for the participants."

The participants included trained dancers and those, like 47-year-old IT consultant Darren Matthews, who haven't danced since they were last in a nightclub, and saw a call-out on social media.

"It was challenging at first, we didn't realise how much work was involved," he said of the rehearsals. "I think I'm a relatively fit person, but it was so exhausting the first couple of days.

"We were doing rehearsals for four to five hours a day for the last two weeks. But it's so great to be just in a room with lots of other people.

"We've been at the [Manchester] Arena doing rehearsals and we were all socially distanced and stuff, but it's just so great to be in a big room with people."

A woman walking past posters of artworks from the Poet Slash Artist exhibition

Other festival highlights include Captioning the City, for which Christine Sun Kim has put giant subtitles on buildings including Bridgewater Hall and Piccadilly station.

There are also posters around the city as part of the Poet Slash Artist exhibition, featuring the work of writers who also make visual art and vice versa, including Tracey Emin, Lubaina Himid and Imtiaz Dharker.

The Arndale shopping centre, meanwhile, has been turned into a makeshift art gallery for Cephas Williams' Portraits of Black Britain, which features giant banners showing high-achieving black Britons.

Cephas Williams' exhibition looks at what it means to be black and living in the UK

Turner Prize winner Laure Provoust has worked with local women to create an installation at Manchester Jewish Museum, which is opening after a £6m renovation.

Performances during the festival will include a stage adaptation of author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Notes on Grief, while Peaky Blinders actor Cillian Murphy stars in a short film as a man meditating on his guilt about the world's problems.

• Cillian Murphy is sorry for everything in poignant film

"The work that you see in the festival is truly joyous, actually," John McGrath says.

"A lot of the feel of it is very much about catching the excitement of being back together, having fun in some ways, but then also reflecting on the things have happened and the difficulties and challenges of the last year as well."

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