Urbis – Goodbye.


Next week marks the end of an era in Manchester. Urbis closes its doors as an art gallery on Friday and will reopen as a football museum.

Urbis has represented the epitome of arty coolness for a long time in Manchester. The whole concept is far removed from the old-style art galleries and museums and offered a fresh way to experience modern art. In addition, students exhibited in Urbis and were able to air their budding talent. Children were allowed to join in hands on projects and express their creativity.

The pinnacle of Urbis’ bond with Madchester and the lost generations of the Hacienda was the Fac exhibition. Well attended by teary-eyed thirty and forty somethings as well as young people breathing in the magic of the Manchester music scene, this exhibition was a close as it gets to reliving the era. The guest book at the end of the exhibition told a story in itself, a lively collection of the way ordinary people experienced music, art and dancing in a northern city.

Many words spring to mind at Urbis’ end: sadness, void, lack, sorrow, even despair. Yet thank-you seems more appropriate, for surely Urbis’ bond with the people of Manchester has spread city wide and installations and exhibitions will continue to spring up throughout the city as a memorial to accessible art.

Goodbye. And thank you.