Museum of Science and Industry

MOSI's community gallery welcomes Wythenshawe to the city centre.

This exhibition has been kindly supported by Waters.

In this specially created exhibition, the community sits alongside MOSI’s world class collections to show the world why Wythenshawe matters. The exhibition is arranged by four themes: Creativity, Industry, the Airport and Living in Wythenshawe. The Museum has been working with local people to make creative work inspired by their homes and lives. 

At the core of the gallery are the people of Wythenshawe. You can use the Oral History Booth to explore their fascinating personal stories, or admire the textiles work of Wythenshawe’s diverse community. You might like to read some wonderful creative writing made by residents at Age Concern. One group even designed a font, called ‘Wythe’, based on the road maps of the area.  You can download it here, just use the link on the right hand side.

Of course we’ve also got some great collections to show you. As you’ll see in the exhibition, Wythenshawe is responsible for its fair share of cool music, and we’ve got record sleeves and badges from a host of Wythenshawe-related bands, many of whom were on Factory Records. These include New Order, Joy Division, the Durutti Column and A Certain Ratio. Some of these records are rare so make sure you come along and see them!

Manchester International Airport is a huge part of the city and Wythenshawe, so it's only right that we’ve got a whole case of Airport-related memorabilia and other objects.

Wythenshawe has also been home to many big industries, such as Vimto, Ferranti and Fielden Electronics. We’ve carefully selected objects from our collections to show you what got made in Wythenshawe, and a bit of what still gets made today.

Along with all these objects and stories we also want you to have fun, so there are special interactives, designed for all the family.  

If you want to know more about Wythenshawe or any of the collections featured, here are some great places to start: 

Wythenshawe and its history

http://www.wythit.com/wythit/
http://www.wythenshawehistory.btik.com/

Factory Records

http://www.cerysmaticfactory.info/
http://www.24hourpartypeople-themovie.com/
http://www.partypeoplemovie.com/

Manchester Airport

http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/manweb.nsf#70

Ferranti computers

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~wylie/Argus/ferranti.htm

If you pay a visit to our Collections Centre, you can see more objects made by these firms and pick up information sheets on them too.