Welcome to Corridor of Light, organised in celebration of Manchester’s Oxford Road Corridor. Stretching south from Central Library in St Peter’s Square, this is the city’s innovation district: a brilliant constellation of people studying, creating and working within one square mile.
The programme for this first-ever edition is all about revealing the stories and places along Oxford Road in a new light, inviting you to gather again and enjoy their transformation as we emerge from lockdown. Expect a warm welcome at two of the UK’s largest universities, landmark cultural and arts institutions and a collection of iconic buildings.
From Corridor of Light’s opening moment, celebrated through song, poetry and beautifully illuminated writing, to its closing event on the front steps of the Whitworth, the programme centres around music, light, language and ideas. Large-scale projections reflect on the risks and rewards of progress close to where the world’s first programmable computer, The Baby, ran, and there will also be algoraves at Hatch– data parties where the language of coding is made visible.
The celebrations are a direct reflection of this special landscape, once home to Emmeline Pankhurst, Friedrich Engels and Elizabeth Gaskell, and the people who live and work locally today. Witness words and poetry representing the wealth of languages spoken here, in a UNESCO city of literature. Take a moment to reflect and thank our NHS. Hear the voices of students, asylum seekers and poets reflecting on their experiences of study, work and home. See light, feel the warmth of fire and share in the collective joys of an area that has so many stories to tell.