Friday 31 July 2026 to Sunday 2 August 2026

Another year passes and, lo, my arty friend from London comes to visit again and what a weekend we have in the two majestic Northern cities of Manchester and Liverpool!

Manchester is busy! It’s sunny! It’s the weekend! It’s ever energetic. The GMEx is hosting a ‘Megacon’ event and the trams and the streets teem with young people in colourful costumes. We meander through the crowds and the turn into the calmer St John’s area, to find  the Aviva Studios. The venue the Ai Weiwei’s Button Up! Exhibition. And, for me, this exhibition is jawdroppingly good!

The critics describe it as ‘monumental’ and ‘colossal’ and the sheer size of exhibits inside the vast warehouse space gives me an instant wow factor! Which, if you are, like me, not an art afficionado, is most welcome! But then, as I begin to explore more deeply, I recognise the perfect nature of the setting. The room itself is so huge that the exhibition feels spacious and there is room to take a thoughtful 360 tour of each work and to study and learn about it in more detail. I read many reviews, some good, some less so, of this event but I chime most with the critic from ‘The Reviews Hub’ who describes it thus:

Button Up! is both awe-inspiring and intimate. The sheer size of the installations demands leisurely contemplation and Aviva Studios offers also the rare opportunity to get close enough to study the craftsmanship involved in their construction and appreciate the meticulous work.

But we voyage on. Onto the M62 to be precise for a day on ‘The Beatles Trail’ in Liverpool. This is far more of a regional tour of the areas such as Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, that shapes the real lives of the ‘Fab Four’ and inspired some of their catalogue. There is more walking and outdoor trekking and it is a lot of fun!

So time to end this brief snapshot of the wonderful culture of two cities: one I call ‘home’ and the other now my place of work! But this was a fabulous weekend in which to slow down and take the time to see them both in a bit more detail.