Latest news with #ManchesterArtGallery
BBC News
23-04-2025
- BBC News
Louisa Palmisano: The fatal van crash that left a city horrified
A family's trip out one sunny day in Manchester became an "unimaginable tragedy" for the parents of three-year-old Louisa Palmisano, who was killed when she was hit by a van. The driver, 35-year-old Rawal Rehman, has pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving after he struck the child, known as Lulu, on Saturday 22 February.A court heard he had taken "20 lines of cocaine" when he first crashed into a tram before his van was forced on to the pavement where the child, from Burnley in Lancashire, was walking hand-in-hand with her flagged down a taxi to escape the scene, leading to a police manhunt before he was arrested two days later. Lulu's parents had taken their daughter to the city for the weekend and were walking first along Booth about 10:00 BST, Lulu was hit after the van crashed into the tram on Mosely Street, close to Manchester Art Gallery. The tram had no time to react as Rehman had ignored the stop and warning signs and driven straight into the oncoming vehicle, according to the Crown Prosecution car then mounted the pavement and struck the girl, who was given emergency treatment as a junior doctor and other passers-by ran to was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary but her severe injuries, which included major head trauma, were too much for her to survive. Lulu was described in a tribute by her parents as the "sweetest, kindest, and most generous little girl", who was full of creativity and joy, and "absolutely loved going to nursery every day". They said "The pain of losing her is unbearable and we miss her more than words can ever express."Rehman fled the scene of the crash and was arrested by Greater Manchester Police two days later on Monday 24 February. He was later charged with causing death by dangerous driving, and on Tuesday pleaded guilty to the offence. In the aftermath, a Manchester City Council spokesman said the incident left "all of Manchester horrified".Lulu's parents said: "In an instant, our lives were shattered beyond repair."Her absence has left a devastating void in our family. She was our only child, our whole world." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
Road taped off in Manchester city centre after lorry crash causes travel chaos
A road was taped off in Manchester city centre on Wednesday evening (April 2) following a crash involving a red lorry which caused chaos to public transport. Princess Street was cordoned off by emergency services near to the Manchester Art Gallery and St Peter's Square. The large red HGV had reversed into scaffolding outside a building and become stuck in the middle of the road. Police attended and taped off the area, while a number of police vehicles could be seen parked along the road as onlookers watched on. READ MORE: YouTuber captures moment he is robbed by masked men in Greater Manchester town READ MORE: Dramatic video shows flames soaring from ground near Greater Manchester country park Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE A number of bus services were impacted by the road closure, with a number of services lining the road. The Bee Network said stops along Princess Street were out of service, with the 35, 36, 37, 38, 50, 51, V1, V2 and V4 buses all impacted by the closure. A post shared on X read: "So what the hell is going on in town?! All buses are stuck on cross street stopping the met from getting to St Peter's Square." Another posted: "Is the 50 on a diversion? Why are we on Peter St?" Greater Manchester Police confirmed the lorry driver had reversed into scaffolding and that emergency crews were called to assist with the road closure. An update shared by the Bee Network read: "Due to a lorry colliding with building scaffolding on Princess Street, services are on diversion. "Services to Manchester will divert via King Street, York Street and New York Street. Services heading out of Manchester will divert via Oxford Street, Quay Street, Irwell Street and Trinity Way." --- Day in day out, our reporters in the Manchester Evening News newsroom bring you remarkable stories from all aspects of Mancunian life. However, with the pace of life these days, the frenetic news agenda and social media algorithms, you might not be getting a chance to read it. That's why every week our Features and Perspectives editor Rob Williams brings you Unmissable, highlighting the best of what we do - bringing it to you directly from us. Make sure you don't miss out, and see what else we have to offer, by clicking here and signing up for MEN Daily News. And be sure to join our politics writer Jo Timan every Sunday for his essential commentary on what matters most to you in Greater Manchester each week in our newsletter Due North. You can also sign up for that here. You can also get all your favourite content from the Manchester Evening News on WhatsApp. Click here to see everything we offer, including everything from breaking news to Coronation Street. If you prefer reading our stories on your phone, consider downloading the Manchester Evening News app here, and our news desk will make sure every time an essential story breaks, you'll be the first to hear about it. And finally, if there is a story you think our journalists should be looking into, we want to hear from you. Email us on newsdesk@ or give us a ring on 0161 211 2920.
BBC News
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Failed uprising remembered 340 years after Somerset battle
A new exhibition telling the story of a 17th Century uprising aims to explore the tragic aftermath of the revolt and its affect on future generations. The Monmouth Rebellion, which ended at the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, was a failed attempt to depose the Catholic King of England, James Castle, which is hosting the event, was the scene of the Bloody Assizes where hundreds of mutineers were later condemned to be hung, drawn and quartered."The rebellion has a fundamental place in the story of Somerset, and the events that followed it have never been forgotten," said Sam Astill, chief executive of the South West Heritage Trust. Tom Mayberry, co-curator of the exhibition, said it was "the cruelty which followed the rebellion which stayed so powerfully in people's minds" and was passed down through the generations."It's a warning to us of how societies can fracture and we see some of those consequences around us in the modern world, so I think the lessons of Sedgemoor have much relevance to our lives today."We are still the inheritors of the echoes of the sense of outrage and grievance, which people felt - that their protest had been so violently answered," he said. At the centre of the exhibition are two paintings on loan from the Tate and Manchester Art Gallery. Edgar Bundy's The Morning of Sedgemoor (1905) shows frightened rebels sheltering in a barn after the battle, and John Pettie's The Duke of Monmouth's Interview with James II (c1882) shows the defeated leader vainly pleading for his life."The king was completely unmoved by his pleas for mercy and shortly thereafter he was beheaded at the Tower of London," said Mr Mayberry."It's important to remember those events, firstly from a purely historical point of view, because what happened then to West Country people was so terrible, but also it shows how quickly disagreements about religion and politics can descend into an utter fracture in society and how violently that fracture may find expression."We should also be aware of glamorous plausible leaders, who may be leading us to disaster," he added. Other items on display include an ostrich plume reputedly worn by the Duke of Monmouth on the battlefield, and 200 lead musket balls found recently at the site."I hope very much that it will draw anyone who has any sense that the Monmouth Rebellion might be something worth discovering," said Mr Mayberry. The exhibition, called After Sedgemoor: Remembering the Monmouth Rebellion, takes place from 29 March to 6 July at the Museum of Somerset. "There couldn't be a better setting for the exhibition than Taunton Castle, which still echoes with the events of 340 years ago," said Mr Astill.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Artist traces Manchester's links to slavery on blue cotton gown
For nearly 160 years, the blue plaque has marked sites of historic importance. Now one English institution has found its own way of signifying a flagship moment while interrogating its past – a blue dress. The new artwork, at Manchester Art Gallery, commemorates the occasion when the African American abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond made a speech on the site in 1859. Inspired by the silhouette of an outfit Parker Remond wore, the dress links stories from the African, American and European continents in its detailing, exploring Manchester's links to slavery through visual metaphor. The common thread is cotton – the commodity linking Victorian Manchester's emergence as an industrial powerhouse with the transatlantic trade in people, a connection that came under greater examination in the city after 2020's Black Lives Matter protests. Unveiled this week, the Victorian-style gown – complete with petticoat, corset, pantaloons, chemise and crinoline – is the work of the artist Holly Graham, who said she wanted to bring Parker Remond's 'voice back into the space' where it was heard more than 165 years ago. Graham collaborated with her mother, the stage and screen costumier Jennifer Graham, and was assisted by researchers to create the dress for the exhibition The Warp/ The Weft/ The Wake. The dress's print references the marbled endpapers of the subscriber logbooks of the Royal Manchester Institution (RMI), 1823's forerunner organisation to Manchester Art Gallery, whose benefactors included members of the Greg family, of Cheshire's Quarry Bank Mill, who enslaved people in Dominica. 'I was thinking about how abolitionist histories are championed in British cultural memory, but without always confronting why those principles were needed in the first place,' Graham said. The artwork also takes inspiration from rare, archive samples of 'Guinea cloth', also known as Manchester check, a fabric produced for west African markets in the 'triangular trade' in people and goods. 'I was interested in the resemblance of the check print to the grid that bound the names of the RMI subscribers in the institution's ledgers, to highlight the names of those whose money was assigned to the founding of the institution, but also the names that are not included … those whose labour facilitates the wealth that was invested in the institution,' Graham said. Parker Remond travelled to England in the late 1850s to urge mill owners and workers to support abolition in the United States, and then to support the Union blockade against plantation owners of the American south. Sign up to The Long Wave Nesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the world after newsletter promotion A physician who campaigned for women's suffrage on both sides of the Atlantic, Parker Remond told a friend of her UK reception: 'I have been received here as a sister by white women for the first time in my life … I have received a sympathy I never was offered before.' In Manchester, Parker Remond highlighted the connection between Manchester and enslaved Americans, before adding: 'Your [Thomas] Clarkson and your [William] Wilberforce [abolitionists] are names of strength to us. I ask you, raise the moral public opinion until its voice reaches the American shores … until the shackles of the American slave melt like dew before the morning sun. I ask especial help from the women of England. Women are the worst victims of the slave power.' While Manchester boomed during a cotton trade from which 'not one cent', as Parker Remond reminded her audience, reached enslaved labourers, the city was also a centre of abolitionist sentiment. The anti-slavery campaigner Richard Cobden was a founder of the Manchester Athenaeum, where the African American statesman and writer Frederick Douglass also lectured. Inbal Livine, a senior creative lead at Manchester City Galleries, said: 'Manchester Art Gallery is a central part of the city's complex history. Holly Graham's work provides an exciting opportunity to link empire, colonialism and exploitation of the past with real and immediate concerns of the present around representation, racism and power.' Both Parker Remond and Douglass were featured as part of the Guardian's Cotton Capital series. The series launched with the Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement programme, a 10-year restorative justice initiative launched in March 2023 in response to the Guardian founders' connections to transatlantic enslavement. Holly Graham: The Warp/ The Weft/ The Wake is at Manchester Art Gallery until 15 March 2026
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Yahoo
Man charged after girl, 3, killed in tram crash
A man has been charged after a three-year-old girl was hit and killed by a van which struck a tram and then mounted a pavement in Manchester city centre. Louisa Palmisano, known as Lulu, from Burnley, died after she was hit by the vehicle after it was forced off the road at about 10:00 GMT on Saturday. Rawal Rehman, 35, of Manchester, has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, Greater Manchester Police said. He is set to appear before Manchester Magistrates' Court later. Lulu's parents said they had been "simply enjoying a happy family day out when this unimaginable tragedy struck". "Her absence has left a devastating void in our family," they said. "She was our only child, our whole world." First responders including an air ambulance crew tried to save Lulu at the scene outside Manchester Art Gallery but she died later in hospital. Her parents added: "In an instant, our lives were shattered beyond repair. "The pain of losing her is unbearable, and we miss her more than words can ever express." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer. 'Sweetest' girl, 3, killed after tram crash named Greater Manchester Police
