Hazard MMX

Saturday 17 July
Manchester city centre 12-5pm free

HAZARD Manchester’s micro-festival of sited performance and intervention unleashes its third wave of bizarre behaviour onto the city on 17 July. Outbreaks of cheeky, thought-provoking and sometimes raunchy sprees of eccentricity take live art and contemporary performance into the public domain.

The two previous outings of Hazard have seen the bold and the beautiful, eccentric and extreme crop-up in every possible location: Cathedral Gardens swaddled in Hazard Tape, giant dancing traffic cones, impossible circumnavigations of the city by canoe and dry-wipe graffiti have all featured. At times unavoidable, at times subliminal, a flash of yellow and black might be the only clue that the city is one big performance.

For HAZARD MMX, over twenty pieces of work will take to the streets, with participating artists to include:

Alex Bradley, Andy&Gaz&Jon, Astrid Breel, Clare Charnley, Doldrum Theatre, Eggs Collective, Fin de Siecle, Freezechester, Hannah Wiles, Hen's Teeth Theatre, James Topple, Jordan McKenzie, Martin Hamblen, Natalie Preece, Noise Club, Out Of Hand Theater, Peader Kirk, Rachael Nutter, Scratch ‘n Sniff Cinema, The Muffia, Vickie Fear

Here is a link to the website which has pictures, videos and writings on the events that took place: http://hazardmcr.org/?page=1

Beeline, Oldham Street
I was selected to take part in Hazard MMX as a paid participant. It was important to me that I proposed work that would develop my practice and build on the concepts that I had been researching. Having produced the Monotony series I wanted to continue with this methodology of producing work that in some way creates a trail for the audience but I was keen to experiment with a way of doing this without using letters.

Continuing with my focus on the homogenisation of our cities, I proposed to draw attention to the ominous and controlling, BXPU 1539 Manchester PU bollards that guard our streets: a black sentinel on every corner, a pillar of our uniform city experience.

Using yellow tape I wrapped the first bollard with just one strip of tape, the second with two, the third with three and so on, until the final bollard at the top of the street was completely yellow. The colour was chosen specifically as one that would be eye catching but also that fitted in with the theme of the festival ‘hazard’ and referenced the city emblem of a bee that is inscribed on every bollard.

Images of Beeline by Hannah Wiles, Photographs by Roshana Rubin-Mayhew