After launching its iconic Great Northerners exhibition in November 2017, Manchester’s Great Northern Warehouse is now expanding its exhibition to honour and celebrate the city’s black and ethnic minority communities.
In 2017, we asked the public to vote for influential local figures that helped put the ‘great’ in Greater Manchester to be celebrated via a set of artwork. From Alan Turing to Emmeline Pankhurst, LS Lowry to Liam Gallagher, the current exhibition, created by Stanley Chow, pays homage to several examples of the region’s most iconic figures.
This October, coinciding with wider celebrations across the city for Black History Month, the Great Northern is asking for nominations for inspiring and iconic Mancunians from black and ethnic minority backgrounds as it commits to expanding its exhibition to better represent the history and diversity of Manchester and its residents.
The nominations will be shortlisted and voted for by the public via social media, with the top three being created by artist, Stanley Chow, and unveiled at the Great Northern later this year.
The Great Northern is encouraging nominations to include influential figures from Greater Manchester’s vibrant past, right up to the present day. Potential candidates include:
· Arthur Wharton, the world’s first black professional footballer
· Sir Arthur Lewis, University of Manchester lecturer and 1979 Nobel Prize winner
· Diane Modahl MBE, Olympic and Commonwealth athlete
· Lemn Sissay, poet and Chancellor of Manchester University
· Leonard Benker, professional middle/light heavyweight boxer of the 1920s, and 1930s
· Marcus Rashford, footballer and anti-poverty campaigner
Nominations will close on 9th November,with voting on the shortlist after that.
Make your nomination below.