Manchester Bicycle Exhibition

MANCHESTER BICYLE EXHIBITION

It’s an exhi­bi­tion of film, pho­tog­ra­phy and sculp­ture to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle over car cul­ture. The bicy­cle exhi­bi­tion opens at Manchester’s alter­na­tive social cen­tre The Base­ment at 24 Lever Street, M1 on Fri­day
30th March at 8pm.

The exhi­bi­tion will be host to local bicy­cle lov­ing artists includ­ing Nes
Brier­ley with sculp­ture and pho­tog­ra­phy show­ing “A Por­trait of
Manchester’s Cyclists”, Muham­mad Murphy’s bicy­cle wheel sculp­tures and
Natal­ie Kay’s bicy­cle pic­tures. Also Car­olyn Ryves will be trav­el­ling up
to Man­ches­ter for the exhi­bi­tion from Cardiff with her full size
inflat­able urban 4x4 that her bike inflates when she ped­als.

The exhi­bi­tion will also host the first screen­ing of a film about cycling
in Man­ches­ter, which is still cur­rent­ly in the mak­ing, called “I Bike
MCR”. The film shows cyclists and cycle facil­i­ties and ser­vices and
bicy­cle cul­ture in Man­ches­ter. The mak­ers of the film are bicy­cle rid­ers
and hope that the film will encour­age more cycling and aware­ness of
cycling in Man­ches­ter.

The pur­pose of the show is to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle over car cul­ture, as
the exhibition’s cura­tor Nes Brier­ley explains, the bicy­cle “is a
health­i­er, green­er, safer, less aggres­sive, more socia­ble and more fun way
to trav­el.”

Before the exhi­bi­tion opens many cyclists will take to our city’s roads on
the month­ly crit­i­cal mass bicy­cle ride. In addi­tion to the oth­er ben­e­fits
of bicy­cling over car dri­ving, bicy­clist Anna Sawyer on February’s
crit­i­cal mass sug­gest­ed: “Social iso­la­tion can come from encas­ing one­self
in a steel shell and mov­ing through an envi­ron­ment with­out regard to the
full panoply of its sights, sounds, smells and, among oth­er thrills, the
joy of fresh wind blow­ing in one’s face”. They hope to encour­age more
dri­vers to ride bikes and enjoy what Anna describes as the “free­dom of
cycling”

“We are not anti-car dri­vers,” not­ed anoth­er crit­i­cal mass rid­er, “We just
want to cel­e­brate the joy of bik­ing and to share that feel­ing with oth­ers
and encour­age oth­ers to ride instead of dri­ve.”

What Crit­i­cal Mass would like to see, she added, is a pol­i­cy of
“appro­pri­ate use” for cars. That means “when no oth­er means of
trans­porta­tion is prac­ti­cal,” though, as one cyclist not­ed, “any place on
Earth is with­in bik­ing range, if you have the time.”

Cycling as opposed to dri­ving is becom­ing a more and more attrac­tive way
to trav­el with 20% of Britains being obese, cycling will help to get us
health­i­er. And the pro­posed con­ges­tion charge in Man­ches­ter may also mean
that peo­ple tak­ing the bicy­cle to work instead of the car will become more
com­mon.

The idea of crit­i­cal mass grew out of an obser­va­tion by urba­nol­o­gist Ted
White study­ing traf­fic pat­terns in cities in Chi­na. With no sig­nals to
halt cars, bicy­clists at cross­walks, they not­ed, would clump togeth­er into
a human shield. When the shield grew large enough, a point described as
“crit­i­cal mass,” it would move into a street, stop­ping cars so rid­ers
could cross. The film, Return Of the Scorcher, in which this phe­nom­e­non
was iden­ti­fied will be showed at the exhi­bi­tion.

Sim­i­lar­ly, in San Fran­cis­co, in August 1992, a loose gath­er­ing of bicy­cle
com­muters began tak­ing to the streets on a reg­u­lar basis to ride home
togeth­er. The idea, which now has tak­en hold in 150 cities around the
world, spread to Man­ches­ter in March 1996, mean­ing that this exhi­bi­tion
also marks Manchester’s 11th year of this bicy­cle ride.

Now, rid­ers gath­er at 6pm on the last Fri­day of each month at Cen­tral
Library. They decide on a route. Then they ride togeth­er through sun­shine,
snow, rain, cold, gloom of night, or rush-hour traf­fic.

“I love crit­i­cal mass because I get to meet oth­er cyclists and chat as I
ride ” says Ben a crit­i­cal mass attendee “for a cou­ple of hours a month
dri­vers have to pay atten­tion to us. Because there are so many of us they
have to give us the respect on the road we deserve and for once we are
seen as traf­fic.”

The art show, which runs from March 30th to April 20th, is not just about
the art. Nes hopes that the exhi­bi­tion will enable peo­ple to see what a
beau­ti­ful machine the bicy­cle is. Yet she also hopes the exhi­bi­tion will
be a hub for cyclists to meet each oth­er and to be a chance to exchange
tips toward cre­at­ing a com­mu­ni­ty with clean­er air, qui­eter streets and a
sup­port­ive and sup­port­ed bicy­cle com­mu­ni­ty in Man­ches­ter.

In addi­tion to the art show there are a num­ber of bicy­cling events planned
for the month includ­ing bicy­cle trea­sure hunts, races, social rides and
Oxford Bicy­cle Polo team are even com­ing to Man­ches­ter spe­cial­ly to teach
the sport.

“In U.S cities like Port­land, San Fran­cis­co and New York there is a
bicy­cle cul­ture and cyclists meet reg­u­lar­ly to ride social­ly togeth­er, to
com­mute togeth­er and to socialise togeth­er.” Nes com­ments, “I hope that
this exhi­bi­tion with all its activ­i­ties will help us to start to cre­ate a sim­i­lar
bicy­cle com­mu­ni­ty here in Man­ches­ter.”

The exhi­bi­tion is at The Base­ment, 24 Lever St, Man­ches­ter M2
(01612371832) Open Tues- Sat 12–6pm, March 30th-April 20th, Free Entry.

Infor­ma­tion about the exhi­bi­tion and the oth­er events is avail­able on
their web­site http://www.ibikemcr.org.uk or email info@ibikemcr.org.uk