Weekend essay

Art

Culture

20 January 2024

9 min read

Wonder walls: will Manchester’s creativity save the city?

Manchester newcomer, and new bishop, Matthew Porter is bowled over by the city’s enrichening creativity.

Matthew Porter

Matthew Porter is Bishop of Bolton, in the diocese of Manchester.

Looking down on a man walking across a grid of large black and white portrait photographs of people's faces

The 'Inside Out: This is Manchester’ installation.

Manchester is the place to be. So thinks fashion house Chanel. It recently hosted its renowned annual Métiers d’Art show in the British city, billing it as ‘one of the most effervescent cities of pop culture and an avant-garde one, whose bands, spanning all genres, have changed the history of music.’ So thinks the English National Opera, who have just announced that Manchester is to be its new home. And so, think the investors who have pumped £242mn into Aviva Studios, a stunning new arts centre, billed as the most important arts venue in the UK since London’s Tate Modern gallery.

Cultural mix

Having recently started as new bishop in the Diocese of Manchester, I feel like I’ve arrived at a time of exploding artistic vibrancy, with the city and region rising to new cultural heights. The mix is rich and potent, edgy and interesting, young and confident, strong and loud. And yet not far from the coolness and affluence it brings there are still many areas of urban dreariness and scruffy social housing, often linked with deprivation and deep poverty, telling a different story of those who feel they’re being left behind, deficient in ambition and lacking in hope. Manchester is a real cultural mix.

Despite these contrasts, you can’t ignore the fact that much of Manchester is humming. The symbol of the city, the ‘Manchester Bee,’ feels apt and has rightly been revived, for it represents hard-work and industry, something the area is becoming known for again. But it’s a new kind of industry. It’s not the hard factories of the cotton mills but the softer artistic endeavours that are reclaiming the spaces and setting the tone. Astute and celebrated, the Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham recognises and champions this, declaring recently that it’s the creative industries that are now the fastest growing sector in the city.

As a newcomer to the region, I’ve been wondering what I should make of all this artistic entrepreneurship. Is it good? Is it important? Is it helpful? To help answer these questions I decided I needed to see what all the fuss was about and so I visited the newly opened Aviva Studios.

Nestling in the heart of the city, on a riverbank, the venue is located in the renovated Granada TV studios building and provides a vast space for creativity. It’s already the home of the Factory International music label and the Manchester International Festival. I was keen to understand the vision and understand why so much time and energy and money has been invested in such a space. I wanted to know if it really is a landmark space for contemporary arts in the UK, especially in the North of England, and whether I’d be back.

So, I visited on the first day of the venue’s official ‘Welcome’ to the general public. There’d been a series of soft launch events which included Free Your Mind, a large-scale, interactive hip-hop dance reimagining of The Matrix, directed by Oscar-winning film-maker Danny Boyle. But this was now ‘open to the world’ time. I turned up with grown-up members of my family who work in various creative sectors and who were keen to explore, aware that the warm-up events had already garnered great acclaim from The Times to Aesthetica magazine. We entered and took in the aroma of fresh coffee and the bustle of noise, as a small crowd of diverse ages gathered round a pop-up stage enjoying the creative reading of a children’s story. The foyer stage was transformed every hour into something new: first a space for musicians, then actors, then artists and dancers, all entertaining and encouraging participation. It was fun and vibrant, with an intriguing and inviting family-feel, drawing people in.

Connective art

Good art does that. It attracts. It reels you in, not just to observe, but to get involved. I experienced something of that as we stepped outside and enjoyed an installation called ‘Inside Out: This is Manchester’. It was a simple black and white portrait-display of two hundred Mancunians. The large photos were set out in a group on a concrete floor, creating what looked rather like a giant board game. The idea was you walked over them, standing on them, in and among them. So, into the photos I walked, and to my surprise I soon discovered the experience to be visually arresting and intriguingly immersive. After a few minutes of wandering among the faces I stood to one side for a breather. I asked my family which face they found most interesting, and I pointed out the one that had stood out for me. At that very moment, I noticed that a woman walking among the pictures had stopped at the one I’d chosen and was crouching down. As I looked again, she appeared rather like the woman in the photo. ‘Hi. Is this your photo?’ I asked. ‘Yes, it is’ she replied. ‘I’m Carmen. I’m just here for a short time today and wanted to see it.’ ‘It’s my favourite’ I said, ‘It’s a really great photo. I love the way it’s captured you pulling such a strong face!’ ‘Thanks’ she smiled, going on to explain how the shoot had been taken, but that this was the first time she’d actually seen it. I was thrilled: the person behind one face out of two hundred that had caught my attention, happened to turn up at the exact moment I was there! It made me feel strangely connected to the installation and with the people of Manchester they represented. Such is the connective power of art!

Such art does what cathedrals of old have done, enabling us to look out and look up and see beyond ourselves into a greater vista. They are deeply valuable and enchanting spaces.

Quality design

From there we went on an architectural tour. The stairwells, the corridors, the foyers, and the meeting spaces were cleanly and elegantly designed, using strong but simple materials, emphasising curves and city views, encouraging you to walk on and see more. We were told how many spaces, especially the foyers, worked really hard, being multi-functional and could be transformed for different uses. The two main venues were impressive and huge: the Hall is a 1600-seat concert venue, and the Warehouse space could host 5,000, thanks to vast walls that can be opened to create one massive space. The quality, the design, the versatility and the technology was hugely impressive, all set up and ready to be a northern centre of artistic excellence.

Enchanting spaces

So what did I make of it? And should such creativity be funded in Manchester? In short, I liked it. In fact, I absolutely loved it. It made me realise how much we need good art, good artists and good artistic spaces. They enrich us and our environment. They touch us deeply not just in our minds but in our souls and cause us to ponder and wonder. Such art does what cathedrals of old have done, enabling us to look out and look up and see beyond ourselves into a greater vista. They are deeply valuable and enchanting spaces.

The experience was significant for me, and extremely positive. Not only do I want to go back but since visiting I’ve mentioned it to quite a lot of people and am finding myself to be a bit of an evangelist for the place! I didn’t expect that. It reminds me that good spaces produce good conversations. The fact that it cost so much might be controversial to some, but it’s hard to put a price on stunning. If it inspires people to great visionary endeavours and lifts people, especially those lacking in hope, to see beyond their horizons, then it’s money well spent. If it causes children and women and men to dream dreams and imagine new futures, then I’m behind it. If it helps people see beyond their present dilemmas and laugh heartily and cry deeply and love compassionately, then I’m a supporter.

I believe passionately in encouraging artistry and innovation whenever and wherever I can. For the God I serve is the great Creator and the inspiration behind all true creativity.

Deeper understanding

My visit to Aviva Studios must have been good, as it’s made me want to support and encourage the team working there. I found myself thanking everyone, and even took a leaflet about becoming a member. As a bishop, I feel on behalf of the church and city that I want to cheer on Aviva Studios, commending it and its boldness to the Greater Manchester area, for I believe passionately in encouraging artistry and innovation whenever and wherever I can. For the God I serve is the great Creator and the inspiration behind all true creativity. Not only has he made the universe and planet Earth on which we reside, but throughout history he has given artistic gifts for human beings to foster and share.

I agree with Japanese artist Makoto Fujimura, that ‘Art is fundamental to the human search for deeper understanding. Art, by extension of this reasoning, is fundamental to understanding the Bible,’ which itself is a beautifully and uniquely-crafted literary work combining human artistry and divine inspiration. Creativity then, is at the heart of God, and of his human creation. We need to express this creativity in all sorts of places, including our workplaces. Artist and crafts pioneer William Morris rightly says that ‘without dignified, creative human occupation people become disconnected from life.' But surely this is true not just of our jobs but of our homes, and especially of designated creative spaces. Without such creative places, like gothic cathedrals, beautiful parks, art galleries and now Aviva Studios, we can easily become disassociated from the wonder and joy of life. We need good spaces to stir us and send us.

Innovative leadership

As a bishop who wants to see our churches growing and communities thriving, I welcome the new Aviva Studios as part of the cultural landscape of Greater Manchester. I want to enjoy it, visit it and share it. I also want the church to learn from it, for churches are meant to be places of Christ-centred worship and mission that are indigenous, reflecting the good things of their cultural environment. Manchester’s burgeoning creative culture is a good challenge to the church to be similarly creative, and not just in a reactive, but proactive way.

Churches have often been centres of creative excellence in the past, which is often when they have been most vibrant. They tried new things and become breeding grounds for creative people and innovative leaders. Interestingly, despite many churches struggling in the UK today, I see more signs of vitality and pioneering cultural leadership now than I did ten years ago. Most days I come across entrepreneurial church leaders who are brimming with fresh thoughts and renewed vision for their communities. Some even have bold and brash ideas that are being turned into reality, like purchasing, at considerable cost, an old army barracks in the centre of Manchester. Once renovated it will be a stunningly creative space for young adults, to serve the city and from which many new churches will be planted in the future. I’m all for it. Let creativity arise!

Creative people

Aviva Studios is an impressive building, designed to be a modern cathedral of contemporary cultural creativity in Manchester. It confidently declares a positive future for the arts, shouting loudly and proudly that Manchester is the cutting-edge city for creativity in the region and, should anyone be unsure, it really is the premier metropolis of the North. But perhaps more importantly I hope its impact will not just be the vast and impressive multi-million pound building, but the greater creative legacy it leaves in people, in those who are shaped by its art.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who was Chief Rabbi from 1991 to 2013 expressed something of this when he said:

'We are shaped by our environment, but we can also shape our environment as well. We are created, but also creative.’

My prayer is that Aviva Studios and the other new artistic ventures will release more creativity across the city and region, across all ages, social sectors, and ethnic groups. Not only will this lift our sights, but it will stir our souls, and cause us to wonder at the Most Creative One, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Essay

Culture

Doubt

Music

Psychology

24 March 2025

9 min read

What happens when perfect plans are outsmarted by the world?

There may be delight hiding in the doom.

Roger Bretherton

Roger is a Clinical and Coaching Psychologist.

Two people sit and stand next to a grand piano on a stage.

Striking the wrong note.

Polyfilm.

If I’ve learned anything at all from decades working with businesses, it’s that they love an acronym. For a while the acronym we loved was VUCA. Not a nuclear jet nor a foot wart, VUCA emerged from the leadership theories of Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus to reflect the Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity of contemporary leadership. Nothing gets a roomful of executives nodding sagely than the observation that we live in a VUCA world. For a while it felt almost sacrilegious not to evoke VUCA at some point when training leaders. It was comforting to tell people who were supposed to be shaping the world that everything was, well… a bit nuts.

But in the last few years VUCA has lost its shine. Things have started to get too crazy, a bit too VUCA for anyone’s liking. The wars, the plagues, the natural disasters, the political upheaval, the shaking of old certainties- it’s all gone a bit super-VUCA. The acronym that once reassured us that the world tends to resist our perfect plans has been outsmarted by the world it once captured. What are we to call this permacrisis, this omnishambles, this SNAFU, when super-mega-hyper-VUCA just sounds stupid? A new acronym was needed. Enter stage left- BANI, the invention of futurologist Jamias Cascio to designate the way things are now: Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear, Incomprehensible. We’ve had a romantic breakup with the world- you’re not like it used to be, you used to be fun, you’ve changed!

In March, Seen & Unseen celebrates its second anniversary. We are two years old. Old enough to appreciate a birthday cake, too young not to burn our fingers on the candles. I’ve been writing for the site since the beginning and to this day feel surprised that this quirky mishmash of a brainfart I keep writing is still accepted for publication each month. Either the folks at Seen& Unseen are pathologically kind to their own detriment, or my monthly missive of misery is not quite as off the wall as I fear it might be.

When I look at the world, I feel like we’re in a football match with no referee. I keep shouting foul and looking for someone to blow the whistle. It feels like the Tower of Babel. Even the technologies we thought would unify us have made us incomprehensible to one another. Like the scene in That Hideous Strength (the third book in C.S. Lewis’ Cosmic Trilogy) where a roomful of people is magically befuddled. They can no longer understand each other, and anyone who rises to take charge of the situation speaks gibberish that only adds volume to the babble. We don’t need any more opinions. We certainly don’t need any more people with misplaced certainty they have the answer.

To be honest, I’ve just run out of ideas. I’m confused, baffled, clueless. But what embarrasses me most is not my helplessness, it’s my hope. For some reason, in jarring contrast to the circumstances, I can’t shake off the sense that ultimately all this will make sense, that breakdowns lead to breakthroughs. We’re in the unbearable part of the story where everything goes wrong, but if we put the book down now, we’ll think that was the end of it, when it was really just the set up. Pretty much everything I’ve written for Seen & Unseen over the last two years equates to: grief, this looks bad, but maybe there is more to it than it appears.

There is another anniversary being celebrated this year. This January marked the fiftieth year of a musical event so remarkable that a new dramatization of it premiered at the Berlin Film Festival to mark the occasion – the recording of The Köln Concert. (Watch the trailer of Köln 75.) If we are looking for a story of how beauty emerges from disaster, this one is worth telling. The event was organised by eighteen-year-old Vera Brandes, at that time the youngest concert promoter in Germany. She booked the Cologne Opera House, but given that it was a jazz concert, it was scheduled to begin at 11:30pm following an opera performance earlier that evening.

The performer, jazz pianist, Keith Garrett travelled to the concert from Zurich. But rather than flying, he sold his ticket for cash and opted to make the 350-mile trip north with his producer Manfred Eicher in a Renault 4. He had not slept well for several nights and arrived late afternoon in pain, wearing a back brace, only to discover that the opera house had messed up. The Bösendorfer 290 Imperial concert grand piano he had requested had been replaced by a much smaller Bösendorfer baby grand the staff had found backstage. The piano was intended for rehearsals only, in poor condition, out of tune, with broken keys and pedals. It was unplayable. Jarrett tried it briefly and refused to perform. But Vera Brandes had sold 1,400 tickets for the evening. So, while he headed out to eat, she promised to get him the piano he required.

But it was not to be. The piano tuner who arrived to fix the baby grand tells her a replacement is impossible. It was January in Northern Germany, the weather was wet and cold, and any grand piano transported in those conditions without specialist equipment would be damaged irreparably. They had to stick with the piano they had. Keith Jarrett’s meal didn’t go well either. There was a mix up at the restaurant and their food arrived late. They barely had chance to eat anything before returning to the venue. And when Garratt saw the tiny defective Bösendorfer still on the stage, he again refused to play, only changing his mind because Eicher’s sound-engineers were set up to record.

So the concert begins. A reluctant pianist – tired, hungry and in pain – sits at a ruined piano, and records the bestselling piano solo album and bestselling jazz album. Ever. He improvises for over an hour. Starting tentatively, exploring the contours, befriending the limitations of his damaged instrument – learning its capabilities as he plays. But soon Jarrett is whooping, yelling and humming with delight as he extracts beauty from the brokenness. The limited register forces him to play differently. The disconnected pedals become percussion. By the time he reaches the encore, the joy of his playing is irrepressible – it sends shivers down the spine. And when he finishes, the applause goes on. Forever.

Jarrett pulled off an impossible feat and sealed his reputation as one of the greatest pianists of his generation. And I take heart from the event, because when I face the world, I sometimes imagine I feel like he did facing that piano. Tired and pained and doubtful any good will come of playing. Can I order a new world, please? One more to my liking. One less likely to hurt. Yet I can’t quite shake off the intuition that there may be delight hiding in the doom, a treasure only unearthed by those willing to play.

I am drawn to Job. He is a hero to all those who are sick of the answers of others but have no answers themselves.

This year I celebrate my own anniversary. I was born seven months after that fateful night in Cologne, in the equally salubrious town of Birkenhead. This is my fiftieth year too. The 3:15pm of life: too early to clock off, too late to start anything new. If living is a race between maturity and senility – gaining the wisdom to live before losing our marbles – then I’m odds-on for a photo finish. The evidence accumulates daily that I am likely to live longer than most of my vocabulary.

Jung held a positive view of old age. He viewed it as the time for religion to ripen. And I can’t help agreeing with him. The older I get the closer God seems. As muscle mass thins the spirit deepens. Outwardly I’m fading away, inwardly I am being renewed day by day. This undoubtedly underlies my hope of beauty arising from our brokenness. In some small and barely noticeable way it is already happening in me. And I know I’m not alone in that.

Jung also wrote about Job- the Hebrew epic of suffering and restoration. Job’s life is like one of those old blues songs. He loses his wife, his kids, his home, his health. He’s left broken, infested with sores and sitting in the dust. If you’ve been in a situation like that, you’ll know that even the most well-meaning friends can respond with surprising incompetence. Job’s friends are no different. They are true believers in Just-World Theory, the universal human tendency to assume that if bad things happen to us we must deserve them, we must have been bad. They live in a world ultimately governed by the kind of instant karma that causes car crashes on YouTube, and they’re keen to teach Job the way the world really is.

But Job resists them at every turn. He may have a proverbial reputation for patience, but he is anything but patient. I used to think this was a story about a man defending his innocence, but it’s much more than that. It’s the story of a man who goes through a breakup with God. He once lived a life of goodness, abundance, and gratitude in which he knew God as attentive and lovingly present. His friends are not just arguing that he’s being punished for some undisclosed sin, but that he’d always been wrong about God. He’d never known God- not really. The God they knew was volatile, capricious, arbitrary, vicious - like a rescue dog, you never quite knew when he would turn. And Job’s suffering was the proof of it.

The problem for Job is that he has no clue why he is suffering, but he will not let his friends obliterate the history he has shared with heaven. He knows God to be utterly faithful, constantly present, sublimely attuned, hugging the contours of his life as the sea hugs the shore. He wants nothing to do with a fickle god who falls asleep on the job or flounces off the first time we let him down. He rejects the here-again gone-again god of his friends. Sometimes, to know God, we need to reject those who claim to speak for God.

The weird thing in Job’s story is that eventually God shows up. Over the course of the narrative, he has asked God 122 questions, and God responds with 61 of his own. The questions are rhetorical- they point to all the places God is present that Job isn’t, all the things that God knows that Job doesn’t, all the things God has done that Job hasn’t. And by the end, Job is satisfied, his friends are dismissed, and his life is restored. God is as Job expected, intimately present but ultimately mysterious. He was right to reject the obtuse certainties of his friends and face the pain of the world with a cultivated sense of unknowing.

When I ponder how best to bring beauty out of a BANI world, how best to play its brokenness like Jarret played his Bösendorfer, I am drawn to Job. He is a hero to all those who are sick of the answers of others but have no answers themselves. He is also a hero to those who, despite all evidence to the contrary, cannot smother their hope. Those who discern the leavening yeast sown in the hearts of humans across the planet; too inconspicuous to make the news, but destined to rise when the time is right.

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