A Visit to Manchester #1 - 21 January 2025

_{Timeless train journey.}

I really enjoyed my recent short visit to Manchester. It was only a brief visit to meet and catch up with a couple of friends. Despite that we managed to fit in a number of fun activities including going to a museum, shopping and even Bingo.

I’m not so keen to take outside photos in places I'm not that familiar with but I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this huge bike sculpture. It was a very simple but eye-catching structure and as I didn’t know anything about it I decided to find more details when I got back home. This area of Manchester has a double ‘landmark’ because there's also a huge building called Beetham Tower nearby.

It was really satisfying to find the key information for this sculpture quickly and accurately without any previous knowledge of it but also being able to check the information was correct in various sources. For instance I read here that the sculpture is actually called Life Cycle but it's also known as the Giant Bicycle. It was commissioned by Manchester City Council for an international environmental conference that was held there back in 1995. The sculpture was moved from that original place to the area where I saw it, just near Deansgate train station a year later.

Much of the information I read about the artist George Wyllie MBE came from here, but I also found the artist's website where I was struck by his 1982 Original Earth Guarantee that you can read here. This is a very jovial way of writing that if Earth is not looked after, the guarantee and Earth become void.

Wyllie was a Scottish engineer that also made art with found objects and alternative materials. He received an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005 for his services to the arts and died in 2012.

Two details I couldn’t capture that well in my photographs because of the time and darkness were the dangling stone at the back of the bike and the bird on the seat; perhaps the surroundings were a bit too busy to see all the details. I later found a daytime photo here where you can get a better look at the little bird on the bike seat.

I also found this 10 year-old video on You Tube which shows a bit of the area including the outside of Deansgate railway station at daylight :

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Thank you for reading !