Winter Tuesdays at Platt Hall

19 and 26 November 2024
3 and 10 December 2024
21 and 28 January 2025
4 and 11 February 2025

12 - 3pm, drop in

Drop into Platt Hall over the winter and try out art making activities in a relaxed space.

Learn how to weave on a table top loom, make a paper star, have a go at lino printing, use the drawing and painting materials, sewing machines, embroidery hoops and threads.

Make space for yourself in your week and chat with people in the neighbourhood. Have a go at something new or bring along a creative project that you are already working on. The Platt Hall staff team will be on hand to get you started. 

Materials, hot drinks, snacks, comfy chairs and toilet facilities available.

All free

No need to book, just turn up and ring the doorbell at the green front door.
​
Any questions - phone the Hall on 0161 245 7245
​(Monday - Thursdays, 10am - 4pm) ​

Everyday creativity at Platt Hall

Celebrating everyday creativity is central to this programme and to our wider thinking at Platt Hall. It's an idea that has become increasingly important as we have got to know the rich cultures and communities on our doorstep a little better, and deepened our understanding of the collections we hold and what makes them meaningful.

Everyday creativity is an intrinsic part of daily life. It's the practice of care and attention to every aspect of life, from choosing what clothes to put on in the morning to cooking an evening meal. Early 20th century architect and design writer WR Lethaby referred to it as 'the common art', through which a deeper connectedness with the world can be found. He described it as the essential foundation from which so-called 'high art' emerges. And because of this, the more important of the two.

​More recently anthropologist Daniel Miller has written about making things as an 'art of care', related to the care we have for others and for our environment. It makes you feel connected. And it makes you feel good. He instructs the reader to "go out and learn to make something, just because you can. Feel for yourself that sense of achievement and exhilaration when you see before you the finished object of your own labour and how that object has in turn made you more than you otherwise had been."

This idea is also central to the Mary Greg Collection of domestic, childhood and handicraft objects, which was given to Manchester and housed here at the Hall in the 1920s. It proved popular with visitors. In 1928 Mrs Greg wrote "I am glad indeed to hear so many people have seen the collection. How glad I should be if we could know if any of them ever make a single thing as a result that will be a delight to themselves, their children or those who come after." Nearly a century later, objects from this collection have proved a popular choice in our Collections Chat programme, sparking conversations ranging from favourite board games, to the history of ironing, to horse riding in Pakistan. 

Make Space is about slowing down, playing with materials, enjoying the process and the company. 

Images from Museum on My Street, the Platt Hall Collections and Open Day workshops earlier this year.