Last week, I went to a wonderful exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery, entitled ‘Things of the Least’.
The story behind the exhibition is most intriguing. The inspiration for it came from the Mary Greg Collection which is held at Platt Hall in Manchester. Mary Hope was born in 1850 and became Mary Greg on her marriage in1895. She collected everyday items which appealed to her and over the period from 1920 to 1949 (the year of her death) she gave over 4,000 objects to Manchester City Galleries. These were small, ‘everyday’ objects that appealed to her and which included, for example, children’s things, miniature items and craft supplies. The dolls’ house bed with its cotton mattress is one such item:
A group of six artists was invited to examine objects in the collection and each then made work inspired by what they had seen. The idea was to develop an experiential exhibition for very young children (under-threes). The pieces made by the artists were then ‘road-tested’ as it were, by groups of children in the target age-group over a period of two years. The result is completely interactive. I visited it during half-term week and saw how children were engaging with the different elements in the large room which housed the exhibition.
Textiles were a part of Mary Greg’s background: her own family was involved in textile brokerage and banking and her husband’s family worked in the production and distribution of cotton cloth. Samples of printed cloth are included in the Mary Greg collection and so are samples of hand-stitched patchwork, as seen below.
These gave inspiration to designers Ashleigh Armitage and Daniel Dainton Simpkins (Kunstruckt) for a three-dimensional structure containing large hexagonal display boxes which children could look into and climb upon (once their shoes had been removed). Prints in the Mary Cleg collection inspired the fabrics for the covers of the modern cushion shapes (seen below) that could be moved around the space.
Within the boxes were a mixture of actual items from the Mary Greg collection (the glass bottle and the clay pipes, for example) and pieces made by artist Naomi Kendrick inspired by the collection (stones wrapped in crochet, gold-painted ‘dolly’ pegs and gold-painted clay egg shapes).
There is a collection of thimbles in the case below.
Some constructed objects were available for the young visitors to play with in the space. Here are some more of the the rounded golden shapes together with knitted soft shapes. The three-year-old who came with me particularly liked the golden ‘eggs’.
Included among these objects was a series of screen-printed and wadded textile items (80 in all!) made by artist Jackie Haynes which were inspired by a pick-up-sticks game in the Mary Greg collection called ‘Spellicans’.
These could be played with and/or thrown up into a specially designed net (see below) which is periodically emptied to release all the items. In the photo, you can see a piece flying into the net which has been launched from an unseen youthful hand!
Another structure was a curtained ‘wall’ which children could explore.
At each end was a low entrance – just right for small children to crawl into. At the rear of the ‘wall’ was a series of curtains including a transparent one, so it was both safe and interesting to explore the space.
In the centre of the space was a large bird (pictured below) on top of a high pole. This was inspired by a tiny glass ornament in the Mary Greg collection.
The bird (seen from behind in the photo below) had a magnificent tail of fibre-optics which changed colour by the use of a control switch which the children themselves were allowed to operate. The five-year-old with me loved it.
The exhibition is at Manchester Art Gallery from October 2025 until November 2026. See it if you can and take some small children with you if possible.
Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3JL website: https://manchesterartgallery.org
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Amanda Jane Textiles 