CityCo and Piccadilly Partnership worked alongside Manchester Museums & Galleries and Band on the Wall to bring the 'We Face Forward’ closing party to Piccadilly Gardens.

The music and art event marked the end of the We Face Forward programme; a series of exhibitions, concerts and installations that brought the city alive this summer as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

The celebration took place on Saturday 15 September featuring an exciting fusion of West African music, art, craft and dance.

The main music stage was hosted by DJ Mayeva and featured special headline act Jali Nyonkoling Kuyateh. Born into a family of traditional oral historians or Griots in The Gambia, Jali Nyonkoling Kuyateh is the hereditary master of the African harp or Kora.

During the afternoon there was a chance to try out African base drums at Djembe and Dun Dun workshops, and learn some new steps with a West African Dance workshop, with Sens Sagna. Activities for children and families included singing, drumming and dancing.

This is the second initiative Piccadilly Partnership has brought to the gardens in association with Manchester Museum, following the Ice Bear Project. Click here for more information.

childrens’ workshops

Artist: Paul Robinson – Body Stamps

Inspired by environmental sustainability and the migration of cultural values, visitors will be using objects from the gardens to create textures for printing on drawings of feet and hands. These will then be hung around the gardens. This work links to the installation 'The World Falls Apart’ by Pascale Marthine Tayou, currently at Whitworth Art Gallery.

Artist: Harriet Hall – Flag Pinwheels

Inspired by 'Ensemble’ by Meschac Gaba (the We Face Forward flag), visitors will be encouraged to create their own swirl of flags to represent themselves; choosing places they’ve visited, places they’d like to go and flags that represents their own family history.

Artist: Luke Adamson – Sound Drawings

Inspired by 'Lagos Soundscapes’ by Emeka Ogboh, visitors will be encourage to visualise the sounds, sights and smells of their favourite place to produce charcoal and pastel drawings that will make a wallpaper scroll to be added to the We Face Forward website.

VIEW IMAGES