Michael Mayhew: The Gathering
The Vanishing: Part One - The Gathering
Live artist Michael Mayhew hosts The Gathering – an installation in the Great Hall exploring vanishing people and the vanishing world.
The Vanishing is a long term project investigating the notion of vanishing – vanishing people, vanishing places and the vanishing world. The project will see him travel overland through Europe, Russia and China to Australia to search for a vanished sister, exploring invisible journeys, vanished tribes and lost identities. He will also journey to Antarctica looking at a vanishing land mass and the disappearing world.
The Vanishing: Part One - The Gathering by Michael Mayhew. Photo by Stacey Potter.
For the Manchester International Festival, Mayhew looks closer to home, gathering stories from people in Manchester about those who have vanished from our lives.
The Gathering is a large scale participatory installation, taking place in one of Manchester’s most majestic indoor spaces - The Great Hall, set in the heart of Manchester’s Town Hall.
Between 12.00hrs and 18.00hrs on June 29th, people were invited to The Great Hall, where they will be met by Michael Mayhew and collaborators. Mayhew will invite these people to share their stories – stories of people who have vanished from their lives.
At 21.00 hours there was a performance, created in response to the stories heard throughout the day.