Project Background

From November 2008, Linnie Blake of MMU and Jenny Langley of the Manchester Academy had been exploring the ways in which a creative collaboration between the two institutions would benefit both school and university students and in the process show what it’s really like to live, work and study in the Moss Side area.

Winning one of the six MMU Public Engagement Fellowships in December 2008, Moss Side Stories began at the Manchester Academy, with all students being given time and support from their own English teachers to write their own life stories.

Of these, some seventy pieces were selected for further work – many of the storytellers writing of the extraordinary journeys that brought them to the school: journeys in search of a better future, journeys from countries beset by war, journeys filled with sadness, joy and hope. Many students, of course, had longstanding links to the area and they too had exciting, inspiring and often moving stories to tell about their lives, their families and their communities.

All roads, it seemed, led to Moss Side.
Moss Side was the place to be.
And we set out to capture that vibrant sense of journey, of arrival, of place and of diverse communities of people in the project.

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