Reality Hack: Hidden Manchester at Urbis until 1st May

A new exhibition by Andrew Paul Brooks at Urbis explores the secret history of our city.

When Urbis first commissioned experimental photographer Andrew Paul Brooks to create a new vision of the city, he turned not to the shining new buildings and affluent shopping arcades of the city centre but to the city’s forgotten places. He approached the people who maintain the city’s glorious listed buildings and asked them to reveal the buildings’ secrets. He joined security guards as they patrolled restricted areas. He contacted Manchester’s Urban Explorers as they discovered the hidden worlds behind the city’s gleaming façade.

The result is an astonishing exhibition that presents an alternative identity for Manchester. This is a city of isolation and community, history and technology, beauty and decay. You’ll never look at Manchester in the same way again.