Caleb White

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ I’ve recently started yet another in a long string of barista jobs. This one, located in central Manchester, makes it easy for me to pop in and visit an exhibition after a shift. So, taking the opportunity to escape out of the cold, I thought I’d give the Central Library a bit of an explore. Now, I’ve been here before, mostly as a warm space to get some work done but hadn’t yet ventured much further than the café. So, noticing a sign for an exhibition hall upstairs, I ascended the steps and to find ‘Portraits of a Workforce’. The exhibition space takes up around an eighth of the circumference of the Central Library. A grand, sweeping corridor which takes you from the central staircase through the Henry Watson Music Library, circling the Wolfson reading room. From the stairs in the Shakespeare Hall, take a left, and it the exhibition is right in front of you. Grand names for grand architecture. Composed of several spoke-like walls, the exhibition space is split ...

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ The train down to Oxford was atypically pleasant. I'd set off early, leaving Manchester at 07:25, and watched the muted sunrise usher in the day as we trundled down south. Arriving in Oxford, the weather still bitingly cold, I walked east - stopping by Gloucester Green to pick up a few pairs of earrings from the market - towards the Ashmolean.    I'd come south this particular day for my dad's birthday and thought to double up the visit with, yet another, explore of Oxford's museums and galleries. Today, The Ashmolean were opening their new exhibition on Anselm Kiefer, but - in a typically frugal fashion - I chose to go instead to their free temporary exhibition.   After making my way to the basement floor - not the most auspicious location for a temporary exhibition - I became once again distracted by the spectacle of the museum. You see, this floor contains the bulk of the performative introspection for the Ashmolean. An exhibition on the history ...