Gleaming cookery utensils and abstract patterns capture the eye of visitors to Manchester's ‘Curry Mile' as part of a duo of art installations entitled The Rusholme Project.
Poppy Bowers reports…

Running until September 8 2007 The Rusholme Project presents two large scale works along the stretch of Wilmslow Road by Indian artist Subodh Gupta and by Pakistani artist Rashid Rana.

The works were commissioned by Shisha, the UK's leading international agency for contemporary South Asian crafts and visual arts, in collaboration with Manchester International Festival.

Flanked on both sides by a variety of South Asian restaurants and boutiques, Rusholme's Wilmslow Road has long been recognised as the bustling hive of activity known to many as the Curry Mile. It is the identity of this infamous stretch of road that provided the focus for each artist and the inspiration for their work.

Placed at one end of Rusholme, in the grounds of the Whitworth Art Gallery, Gupta's large stainless steel sculpture 27 Light Years is made up of a magnitude of cooking utensils. Pots, pans and ladles are some of the tools used in South Asian cuisine and all are gathered together in the form of a large scale structure reminiscent of a rocket or spaceship.

Known for making work in a variety of media, Gupta often draws upon the familiar objects of the everyday to focus on the rapidly changing state of Indian Society.

“Art is about life,” he says, “so I make my work about myself and what I know. Art is valuable because it is about experiences that have nothing in common with art.”

Standing several metres high, the steel sculpture is robust yet the careful positioning of utensils suggest a hint of delicacy and precariousness.

Visitors are invited to walk around the piece, touch the objects fixed within it, look through the gaps and question how the artist has created it. Its shining steel surface captures the sunlight and also glistens in the rain providing a striking visual attraction for passers-by.

Appearing as though just landed from a long journey the sculpture points its nose towards the nearby activity of the Curry Mile and echoes the long distance historically travelled by Manchester's South Asian community. Steel rods protrude through the structure conveying a sense of speed and power, referencing the fast pace of the popular area and its successful commercialisation of South Asian cuisine.

Further down the road, Rashid Rana continues the theme of fast-moving activity in a series of pixelated images spread across the upper windows of the Jobcentre Plus building.

Drawing upon the busy bus route that runs through the heart of Rusholme, Rana presents abstract and disjointed images to convey a sense of passing movements. Taken from a DVD film of the Curry Mile, the images are distorted so as to reflect the momentary encounter most people experience when travelling through Rusholme.

Each window frame seems to depict a section of what could be a larger coherent image yet this remains unclear to the viewer. Shards of coloured rectangles appear amongst a muted backdrop to suggest a fleeting digital image, distorted by the rapid movement of time. Whether you are standing still or passing by the building in a vehicle, this image remains in a constant transitory state.

Unlike Gupta, Rana resists the urge to present recognisable imagery and instead appeals for a direct emotive experience of the Curry Mile. Although Rana's installation represents a clever play on how we read images in a certain environment the subtlety of the artist's concept may be lost on members of the public seeking a familiar and identifiable image.

Whilst Gupta presents a sculpture that both physically and conceptually engages the viewer with the cultural and symbolic identity of the Curry Mile district, Rana's installation demands more enquiry from the visitor in order to fully grasp the artwork's potential. In each case both pieces fully reward the viewer as they are invited to celebrate one of the most interesting and visually rich areas of Manchester.