Exhibition of work by Edward Hillel in Manchester

Your website is marvellous. Thank you for the devoted work you continue to do for our community.

As suggested to me by several of your readers, I am enclosing a Press Release about my upcoming exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery.

God bless.

Edward Hillel
ehillel@mindspring.com

Edward Hillel
Coming Soon...
13 July - 1 September 2002
Opening: 11 July, 2002 6 - 9 p.m.

Edward Hillel's project Coming Soon... is an intimate installation which deals with ideas of memory and landscape. The subject of the project is an area of Manchester called Little Ireland, once a hugely important mill site where 40,000 poor people lived and worked during the Industrial Revolution and beyond. Little Ireland, and more specifically the Dunlop Factory at the heart of the site, is now about to be turned into exclusive loft apartments by the city's property developers. Using photography, video and found pieces from the area, Edward Hillel captures a moment in time between the past and the future and is both local and universal in its themes.

The installation will consist of an evocative combination of photographs and video projections of the Little Ireland site and the abandoned Dunlop factory in its last days before conversion, along with displays of found pieces such as rusty factory wheels salvaged from the site. An audio soundtrack recreates the sound of the factory.

The project aims to give a flavour of the Dickensian, labyrinthine nature of the factory and to portray a little of its fascinating history, which spans some 200 years and influenced the likes of Marx and Engels to develop their ideas on the working class and the theory of communism. On a local level, the Gallery hopes to run a reminiscence project with older people who have had connections with the site in the past and will be invited to see the project to use the art as a starting point to trigger their memories.

An accompanying publication will feature the artist's photographs of Manchester and the abandoned production site.

Edward Hillel was born in Iraq and divides his time between Montreal, New York and Paris. His multi-disciplinary work is exhibited and published widely and includes photography, video, audio, objects and installations. In 1999, Hillel was awarded the German Critics' Association Visual Arts Prize after presenting four exhibitions in Berlin and an installation in the Museum of Modern Art, Weimar.

Coming Soon... is supported by the Regional Arts Lottery Board, Taylor Woodrow Plc, the Canadian High Commission and the Québec Government House Uk. It is being shown as part of Cultureshock and the Spirit of Friendship Festival. Edward Hillel's work is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

For further information and images, please contact Kim Gowland, Manchester
Art Gallery on Tel 0161 235 8861 or email k.gowland@notes.manchester.gov.uk