Benjamin Myers, Adelle Stripe

MLF and Manchester Art Gallery have co-commissioned Ben Myers and Adelle Stripe to respond to Return to Manchester, a career-spanning solo exhibition by cult British photographer Martin Parr.

The exhibition documents Manchester over the last 40 years, including photographs of Prestwich Mental Hospital, Yates’s Wine Lodge and Market Street, alongside newly-commissioned work featuring the city and its diverse communities over the past six months.

Based in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, Ben and Adelle are known for writing original and deeply moving fiction that explores place, landscape, class, community and marginalised characters. Adelle is the author of three poetry collections and the novel Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, inspired by the life and work of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar. Ben is the author of Under The Rock: The Poetry of a Place, Turning Blue, These Darkening Days, and The Gallows Pole, which won the 2018 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.