There is a Light That Never Goes Out

The Visual Collections Department are pleased to announce that the exhibition photographs from ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’ have been catalogued and the details are now appearing in Library Search.

‘There is a light that never goes out’ was a unique exhibition of photographic prints documenting Manchester as a city inextricably linked to its musical heritage. The exhibition was purchased by the John Rylands Research Institute and Library in early 2020, just weeks prior to the national lockdown due to the Covid pandemic; it is a celebration of Manchester’s musical giants, which complements our growing photographic collections and our British Pop Archive.

The idea for ‘There is a light’ was developed by photographer Jill Furmanovsky and the Rock Archive Collective, after her successful ‘Oasis DNA’ exhibition in 2017. Jill collaborated with writer Jon Savage to develop the exhibition and with help from the Manchester Digital Music Archive they curated this superb collection of photographs. In addition to Jill’s works there are iconic images created by Kevin Cummins, Pennie Smith, Paul Slattery, Steve Double, Peter Walsh and Howard Barlow.

Cataloguing this collection has been really fascinating – I thought I knew most of the bands featured and their histories, but I’ve researched less prominent bands, the less known musicians and discovered where and when some of these bands toured.  I particularly enjoyed being able to link these images to others held in our Visual Collections and seeing how the artists had developed, changed, and often ‘aged’ throughout our collections, particularly through their haircuts and fashion choices.

For more details: Special Collections A to Z (The University of Manchester Library) and to search for the details The University of Manchester Library (The University of Manchester Library)