Manchester’s newest art centre, HOME will open its doors on 21 May with a four-day event including visual arts, film, theatre, and even a funfair themed fireworks spectacular led by Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire movie director Danny Boyle. The bank holiday weekend extravaganza will inaugurate the purpose-built landmark building, which has been designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo, and is set to host an ambitious program of exhibitions, film screenings, and theatre performances.
Despite the funfair’s festive vibe, however, HOME’s inaugural group exhibition tackles difficult themes. Borrowing its title from a passage in the bible, and the novel by Laura Albert/JT LeRoy, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things’ explores heartbreak and loss. The exhibition is guest curated Omar Kholeif, curator at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, and includes works by Douglas Coupland, Wu Tsang, Ragnar Kjartansson, Rosa Barba, and Declan Clarke among other artists.
The opening film program will feature the premiere of ‘Slow West’, which is the debut film of John Maclean. The film is a psychedelic western starring Michael Fassbender, playing a cunning outlaw. Other film screenings include Tod Browning’s circus masterpiece ‘Freaks’, Eric Rohmer’s ‘My night with Maud’, and a preview of Wim Wender’s biopic of Sebastião Salgado, ‘The Salt of the Earth’.
The Oscar-winning film-maker Danny Boyle, who was born in Manchester in 1956, is one of the new institution’s patrons, alongside other cultural luminaries, including the artists Phil Collins and Rosa Barba. HOME was formed by the merger of two of Manchester’s best-loved arts organisations, Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company; with two new theatres that will be a platform for new, commissioned work. Including five screens for challenging, independent, provoking film work. With the gallery space home to contemporary art.