We Were Spending Precious Time

We Were Spending Precious Time was a public engagement art process of 17 meetings with 17 different people; 17 ways of
looking at the city; and 17 glimpses of other people’s histories. Sometimes gathered over 20 volunteers in February 2009 to create this new installation. People were ‘bought’ out of work, college, shopping, sleeping… (whatever it is that they do), and asked to lead a journey around Manchester that means something to them.

“We spent a week journeying through the city with friends old and new, on the buses, or on foot. We listened out for silences, we imagined the plane in the sky and the vapour trail. We looked for an outfit for a much-loved sister’s leaving do, peeked through the gates to the football ground, and the letterboxes of empty houses.