Hip Hop Chip Shop

National Fish and Chip Day was observed on 2 June 2023 and the Hip Hop Chip Shop was named the second best fish and chip shop in the country.

The Hip Hop Chip Shop opened its Ancoats premises in 2018, after several years travelling around the festivals and fairs as a van pop-up – which you can still find at events around Manchester, including the recent Manchester International Festival.

Their menu includes all the chip shop staples – fish, chips, sausages, pies, mushy peas – as well as some twists on the classics, such as curry batter fish bites, battered gherkins and bombay chips. They also have a good range of halloumi and vegan alternatives.

After dining we took a pleasant walk around New Islington. It’s historically part of Ancoats, but has taken a separate identity to reflect its changed status as a regeneration area.

More great photos can be seen here.

Smart Barnett’s Solo Exhibition – Embroidery Meets Digital Art

The exhibition launches from 6.00pm til late on 21 July 2023 at Kerb, 04 Henry Street, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 5DD and continues until 31 August 2023.

Smart Barnett, a visionary artist and designer based in Manchester, invites art enthusiasts and culture aficionados to experience a captivating solo art show at the exquisite venue of Kerb Wine in Ancoats. This groundbreaking exhibition showcases Barnett’s unique fusion of textiles and digital art, pushing the boundaries of traditional techniques and exploring the intriguing intersection of intimacy, online culture and self-expression.

With embroidery at the core of his practice, Smart Barnett challenges preconceived notions by juxtaposing this age-old craft with thought-provoking imagery and themes. His works delve into the captivating world of contemporary image cultures, particularly those relating to online dating and the exploration of web-based intimacy. Through his art, Barnett reflects on the ways in which these cultures have expanded our understanding of erotic imagery, simultaneously examining the intricate balance between revealing and concealing aspects of our online personas.

As Smart’s artistic journey progresses, his work has grown increasingly personal and subjective. The artist boldly questions his own exhibitionist tendencies, obsessions, self-image and the impact of past traumas. Within the safe and normative realm of embroidery, Barnett strives to create artworks that are not only expressive and bold but also intimate in their dimensions, inviting viewers to engage on a profoundly personal level.

The SMART BARNETT solo art show will feature a captivating collection of both new and previously exhibited works, allowing visitors to witness the evolution of the artist’s creative vision. Notably, Smart Barnett recently presented an acclaimed show with Friends of Dorothy, further solidifying his status as a rising star in the art world.

Additionally, attendees of the exhibition will have the opportunity to purchase Smart Barnett’s artwork, as it is now available for sale via the Friends of Dorothy webshop.

The exhibition will run from 21 July to 31 August at Kerb Wine’s stunning venue located at 04 Henry St, Ancoats, Manchester, M4 5DD.

Smart Barnett’s thought-provoking art challenges conventional boundaries and offers a unique perspective on contemporary culture. Be sure to mark your calendars for this extraordinary exhibition, as it promises to ignite your imagination, evoke emotions, and leave a lasting impact.

UK Government exporting homophobia

Following the recent passing of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Law, the UK acknowledged it had sent £134,000 in foreign aid to the Inter Religious Council of Uganda – an anti-LGBT group which may have played a role in the bill’s passage.

As a government that allegedly values human rights and equality, it’s crucial that taxpayer money supports organisations that hold the same values. 

Sign this petition demanding the UK government immediately commits to no longer funding anti-LGBT+ groups!

Oldham Pride

Mark your calendar for the Oldham Pride weekend on 21 – 23 July.

On Saturday 22 July, the parade will start at 12.00 noon and will be led by a Samba band. The parade will move through the Town Centre from Greaves Street to Queen Elizabeth Hall. There will be entertainment, stalls and activities until 6.00pm.

Isabelle Eberhardt: Rebel with a Cause

A Swiss woman who converted to Islam, spent seven years wandering the Tunisian and Algerian Sahara writing almost exclusively about the suffering of locals at the hands of the French colonial government, and died in a flash flood at the age of twenty-seven, Isabelle Eberhardt wasn’t your average Edwardian explorer.

Eberhardt was a rebel in every sense of the word and one with several causes. The illegitimate daughter of a Russian noblewoman, who was herself illegitimate and had run away from her Tsarist husband to Switzerland, Eberhardt was born in 1877 with neither known father nor fatherland – a doomed position for a woman in a society where status was all. As a teenager, Eberhardt published short stories under a male pseudonym.

“Yet vagrancy is deliverance and life on the open road is the essence of freedom,” Eberhardt wrote in The Oblivion Seekers, an English-language anthology of notes, journal entries, and impassioned letters. “To have the courage to smash the chains with which modern life has weighted us (under the pretext that it was offering us more liberty), then to take up the symbolic stick and bundle and get out!”

Eberhardt “got out” by wearing a burnous (androgynous white robe), introducing herself as Si Mahmoud Essadi, and exploring the Maghrebian desert mostly on foot or horseback. She began wearing male clothing exclusively and developed a masculine personality, speaking and writing as a man. Eberhardt behaved like an Arab man, challenging gender and racial norms. Asked why she dressed as an Arab man, she invariably replied: “It is impossible for me to do otherwise.”

She was initiated into the Quadriya, a mystical Sufi brotherhood that had great influence among the desert tribes, and, according to her journal, she harboured secret ambitions to become a marabute (saint). However, she also admired the wild life of the legionnaires and ended up travelling, bunking, and drinking with them.

Like many rebels, Eberhardt sacrificed her own health on the altar of rock and roll. She always preferred a hard floor to a soft bed and carried a gun rather than a toothbrush. By the time she died, she’d lost all her teeth as well as most of her hair due to malnutrition. Malaria meant frequent visits to the hospital, and she also suffered from what was probably syphilis.

Possibly due to her lack of connections in Europe, her writing has not enjoyed as much recognition as it deserves. In an age when Bedouin-Oriental romanticism was defining the work of travel writers such as Pierre Loti, Eberhardt wrote almost exclusively about the dehumanising effects of French rule on the Maghreb. Her perfect Arabic, religious devotion, and marriage to local soldier Slimene Ehnni gave her unrivalled insider access, and she reported on Bedouin traditions normally closed to outsiders. When she died at age 27, she left 2,000 pages of articles, journal entries, and works of fiction, including the novel, Vagabond.

Language itself was one of her favourite weapons. “She was the first to use polyglotism as a device to undermine ‘monolange,’ one of the principle pillars of the colonial order,” observes Tunisian scholar Hedi Abdel-Jaouad. Her travelogues resolutely refer to the Maghreb rather than North Africa and include indigenous Berber words, while her letters flit between Russian (her first language), Arabic, French, Latin and Greek.

Of course, her scorn for the accepted order did not go unnoticed.

“How the masses get annoyed when they see among them an individual – especially a woman – emerge who wants to be herself and not resemble them!” Eberhardt reflected in her journal, published posthumously as The Nomad: Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt. Given that government agents tailed her, thinking she was a spy, she and her husband were bullied out of the town of Tenes, and a religious fanatic all but severed her left arm with a sabre in 1901, leaving her in constant agony, the term “annoyed” feels like understatement.

We live in an age where identity, gender, and nationhood are topics that still have the power to divide, and in many ways Eberhardt’s short, astonishing life embodies some of the big discourses of modern times. So why have most of us never heard of her? She falls between the cracks of the canon to remain somewhere between man and woman, European and Arab, hedonist and journalist, intellectual and lost soul. One thing we can all agree on is that she made quite some contribution to the cause of personal freedom.