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.

Article

Belief

Creed

Politics

27 October 2025

7 min read

If a King can pray with a Pope, there's hope for MAGA and woke to talk

Once bitter enemies found peace through prayer - offering a quiet challenge to today’s culture warriors

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

The Pope and King Charles walk together from the Sistine Chapel

Royal.uk

Last week, King Charles met the Pope.

There was a part of me that wondered what Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, and even the young Ian Paisley would have of made it. Not much I imagine. The days of sharp theological barbs thrown between Protestants and Catholics over the mass, purgatory, the place of Mary, praying to the saints and so on are largely over. I imagine they had a cup of tea, admired Michaelangelo’s painting in the Sistine chapel and had a chat, but the main thing they did was to pray together - the first time a British monarch had met to pray with a Pope since the Reformation.

So this was quite a big deal. Prayer carries much more significance than tea. But why did it matter so much?

To make sense of it, you have to remember the history.

In the aftermath of the English church’s break from Rome under Henry VIII, later consolidated under Elizabeth I, one of the most influential books that emerged from the English Reformation was Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, originally published in 1563. Alongside the ubiquitous King James Bibles, copies were to be found in English homes up and down the country for centuries afterwards. The book was a grisly catalogue of Christian persecution down the ages, and a thinly veiled side-swipe at the author’s main target - the Roman Catholic church, or “popery, which brought innovations into the church and overspread the Christian world with darkness and superstition.” Back then, that was how most British people saw the papacy.

In 1605, a plot led by a group of English Roman Catholics to kill King James I of England (and VI of Scotland) and to blow up the Houses of Parliament was rumbled – the infamous Gunpowder Plot. For centuries afterwards on the anniversary of the conspiracy (until Health & Safety and modern squeamishness toned it down) the English lit bonfires, launched fireworks, and burnt effigies of the Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes to celebrate the deliverance of the nation from papal tyranny. At the time - and partly as a result of that event - Catholics were feared in England much as militant Islam is today in parts of the west – as a shadowy force infiltrating the nation from other European countries (mainly France and Ireland in this case), intent on changing the religion of the country, and imposing arbitrary and tyrannical rule on the population of Britain.

Later in the same century, the looming prospect of a Catholic monarch put Britain into a spin. Charles II had been restored to the throne in 1660 after his father’s execution during the Civil Wars. Charles’ own Protestant credentials were always shaky – a fear that was confirmed by his deathbed conversion to Catholicism in 1685, but at least during his lifetime he remained a Protestant Anglican. The real problem was the heir – Charles’ younger brother James, the rakish Duke of York who was most definitely a Catholic. The same fears of papal tyranny and arbitrary rule, taking away the precious freedoms of the British people were the talk of the coffee houses and broadsheets of the 1670s and 80s.

All the more remarkable then, that relationships between Anglicans and Roman Catholics have develop to such an extent that Anglicans (alongside other churches) were guests of honour at the late pope’s funeral and the inaugural mass of the new pope - and a King prays with a Pope.

So why have things changed so much?

Part of the answer is that times have changed. Europe is less obviously Christian than it was back then. The Christian churches have realised they don’t have the luxury of fighting over such matters. With Christian theology becoming less of a ‘public truth’ that held nations together (much as notions of freedom and democracy do for us today) arguments over it became less fraught and charged.

Another reason is the lengthy conversations that have taken place between churches in the ecumenical movement throughout the last century that have carefully been able to unpick the disagreements, clarifying what was and wasn’t at stake in the fights between Lutherans, Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox and others. These conversations haven’t solved all the issues. Different Christian denominations still disagree on a lot, especially today on issues like human sexuality and the like, but over time, they have at least brought clarity and a certain harmony to some of the historic disagreements. Anglicans still convert to Catholicism, and Catholics become Anglicans (or Orthodox or Pentecostals). The King and the Archbishop of York could not take Holy Communion with the Pope, but they could pray. I know from personal experience the depths of friendship that come when you recognise a brother or a sister in a Christian that you disagree with but in whom you can still recognise an essential commonality.

Another key part of the answer is that the Roman Catholic church has changed. Last year for example, the Vatican department that oversees relationships with other churches issued a study document called ‘The Bishop of Rome’. It was part of an ongoing conversation between the Roman Catholic Church and other world churches on the role of the Pope in the modern world. It talked about the Papacy as having a ‘primacy of service’, its authority linked not to the triumphant but the suffering Christ, of how the Pope offered a kind of ‘personal’ kind of leadership, Orthodox churches a ‘collegial’ form (led by groups of bishops) and the Protestant churches a form that stressed the importance of the whole community.

In other words, here was the Vatican asking other churches how the Papacy can be a help and support to Christians around the world. Back in the nineteenth century, in the first Vatican Council of 1869, the language was very different. The papacy was there by ‘divine right’, essential for the church, implying that other churches really ought to come back into the fold of the Church of Rome. The Roman Catholic church now seems to take a humbler, more generous stance which makes it possible for a King to pray with a Pope again.

It's a heartwarming story. We constantly lament today the polarised, fragmented and angry nature of our politics and our cultural debate. The ecumenical movement of the Christian churches over the last hundred years may not be the sexiest development in recent cultural history. It involved long and painstaking conversations, the building of friendships and relationships across suspicion, a willingness to see the good in the other even when you could not agree. Yet this combination of time, patient conversation and humility has yielded fruit.

In the seventeenth century, British Protestants saw Catholics as the deadly enemy seeing to undermine everything they hold dear - pretty much as some people do today see Muslims, or as progressives see conservatives or vice versa. Does this story hold out any hope of finding healthier ways to live together across our religious and political divides? Maybe. It's different of course because Catholics and Anglicans share the same basic faith, they recite the same Creed, they read (almost) the same Bible, they worship the same Jesus. With Islam we're talking about a different faith altogether. The ‘woke’ and the ‘MAGA’ people don’t seem to share much at all.

But yet we do share a common humanity. And with patience, conversation, a willingness to look for the good in the other, some form of peaceful co-existence, with freedom to debate, or even to change religion might become possible.

For that we can hope. And like the King and the Pope, pray.

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