Manchester International Festival's 2021 edition features special commissions by Laure Prouvost and Rashid Rana

28 April 2021

Manchester International Festival has today announced further details of the new artist projects commissioned for its eighth edition, taking place from 1 to 18 July this year. After a year spent in isolation, MIF21 invites visitors back to the heart of Manchester for performance and dance, art, live music, and conversations.

Events will take place safely in indoor and outdoor locations across Greater Manchester, including the first ever work on the construction site of The Factory, the world-class arts space that will be MIF’s future home. A rich online offer will provide a window into the Festival wherever audiences are, including livestreams and work created especially for the digital realm.

Among the announced commissions is a new project by artist and academic Rashid Rana conceived entirely around the concept of EART – a term coined by the artist to describe moments of self-expression and creative practise inclusive of, but not limited to, the arts. A major element of this project will be an anti-consumerist pop-up grocery store that will open as a fully functioning Manchester shop selling generic, locally sourced and unbranded produce. The project will be on view for the duration of the Festival and will be free to visit.

Co-commissioned by Manchester's Jewish Museum and MIF, Laure Prouvost will premiere a new immersive installation, The long waited, weighted gathering, which will include a new film, shot inside the museum and in the surrounding Cheetham Hill area, inspired by the museum’s history as a former Spanish and Portuguese synagogue. The exhibition opens on 2 July and will run until 3 October.

Find further information via MIF.