Walking around any city it is not uncommon to catch glimpses of the world that exists beneath the polished surfaces of glass and steel. Snatched glances into an open grate, through a broken hoarding, behind a door ajar reveal, if only for a moment, the hidden world that serves to support our contemporary imaginings of the city.

For most of us these moments of revelation, though fascinating for a second, are written off as mere distractions from our purpose in the city, an aside to our ever?growing list of destinations loaded with more immediacy and purpose. However, for some these entrances to the city’s back?stage are part of their everyday, entrances to the places that for some mean work and for others mean play.

From 2nd December 2008 until May 2009 Urbis will be exhibiting a series of newly commissioned works from experimental photographer Andrew Paul Brooks documenting his journeys behind the scenes with Manchester’s official and unofficial custodians of the hidden city. Joining the unsung characters who maintain the city’s landmark buildings, the security personnel who patrol the empty spaces and Manchester’s own community of Urban Explorers the exhibition promises to reveal concealed, restricted and sometimes forgotten spaces that hover in the peripheral vision of the day?to?day like never before.

View more images here www.tinyurl.com/hiddenmanchester

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