Modern & Contemporary Art Exhibitions in Manchester

Richard Hards’ autumn 2026 exhibition at Moon Grove brings together moving image, sound, and archival photography developed through the artist’s sustained research into the 1990 Manchester Strangeways Prison protest. Emerging from his doctoral project, ‘Reasonable men might have acted likewise’ [LINK text='[i] ' href='https://www.moongrove.org/forthcoming#_edn1'] , the show takes as its starting point a recording made during the prison’s Sunday service, immediately before the protest began. The circumstances of this document are significant. On 1 April 1990, around 300 prisoners were assembled in the Strangeways chapel for Sunday service. A visiting speaker had just delivered a sermon when a prisoner, Paul Taylor, took the microphone and began addressing the congregation. The Prison Reform Trust describes Taylor as delivering his ‘own sermon’, calling for resistance and reform, reusing words from the address to rebuke the prison system. As the service was being recorded by Rev. Noel Proctor, the prison chaplain — reportedly for distribution to a prayer group — the beginning of the disturbance was inadvertently captured. Proctor subsequently submitted the tape to the Home Office as evidence for the prosecution of protesters. Only the section considered useful as evidence survives in transcript: the choir, guest sermon and chaplain’s solo are absent. Hards has spent several years attempting to locate the soundtrack; having passed from the Home Office to the Ministry of Justice, it may remain in government storage or have been destroyed under records-retention procedures. Its existence remains uncertain. The missing tape subsequently becomes a kind of MacGuffin [LINK text='[ii] ' href='https://www.moongrove.org/forthcoming#_edn2'] for the exhibition: an absent object that remains persistently out of reach while driving Hards’ research. The artist’s search has generated an accumulation of other material – released documents, photographs, transcripts and memorabilia, alongside freedom of information requests – through which a wider history of the protest and its representation emerges. A new sound work, Strangeways Prison Chapel, April 1st 1990 (2026), situated in the living room at Moon Grove, re-enacts the surviving partial transcript through the voices of a protesting prisoner, and the Reverend and prisoners shouting elsewhere in the chapel. Rather than reconstructing the service, it draws attention to what was preserved as evidence, what was discarded and the institutional decisions that determined the difference. Elsewhere, archival press photographs are enlarged across tiled sheets; taken from outside the prison by photographers unable to enter the site, their distant viewpoints break down into grain, dots and seams. The images include men occupying the prison roof; a banner reading ‘NO DEAD’, produced while conflicting reports circulated about fatalities inside; negotiations between prisoners and officials across different areas of the prison.

Carry the Clouds Away : New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery University of Salford 17th August – 18th December 2026 Free entry, open to the public 10am – 4pm weekdays (excl bank holiday ). *Please note the exhibition will not be open during the Peel Park celebrations on 22nd August, but attendees are encouraged to visit during gallery opening hours. This Saturday Peel Park celebrates its 180th year of bringing nature, community and the outdoors to the people of Salford since it’s opening in 1846. In commemoration the park will be having a birthday celebration taking place from 11am to 3pm on 22nd August, with family friendly activities including live theatre performances by Barton Theatre Group, music from the Farnworth and Walkden Brass Band, the Wagon Train, guided walks, a children’s book launch and trail. The event is open to all and free of charge with no booking required. The Peel Park Birthday event has been organised jointly by the Salford Ranger Team and the Friends of Peel Park. A short walk away from Peel Park is the Art Collection’s new exhibition Carry the Clouds Away, in the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery on campus. Keeping to the spirit of the Peel Park event, this exhibition celebrates the varied ways in which we find inspiration, connection, and solace in places of nature, with some of the works centred around Peel Park itself!