Can art solve the city's problems outside the gallery walls?

Some pressing issues in society - such as race, class, age, and gender - have not been addressed by politics. Could an artist do a better job? A new major art exhibition was announced in Manchester as the "Guide to Social Change."

The title - What City? - invite visitors to imagine the future they want and how art can help make it happen. It may be ambitious, but it's not the kind of art that looks good on a gallery wall. The exhibition is hosted by veteran American arts activist Susan Lacey, who has been organizing events combining community building with performing arts for 50 years.

"There is a between a political activist and an artist," he said at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. "I think being an artist is a bit of fun. "It can be tough as an activist from time to time because the issues I'm dealing with are quite depressing."

When Lacey first hit the market in the early 1970s, she raised awareness of sexual assault by persuading women to sit in bathtubs filled with eggs, blood, and clay while recording footage of others containing explicit details of their rape.

He then posted the locations of the people who were raped daily on a map at a Los Angeles mall. Finally, he assembled 60 women dressed as luxurious slaves to line up outside City Hall to seek revenge against Hillside's serial killer.

The Manchester exhibition features footage, photos, and posters from their following three projects as their work focuses on bringing groups of people together to hear their voices and improve relationships.

In the 1990s, he organized discussions and basketball games between youth and police in Oakland, California, and organized umbrella events for disenfranchised and often blackened kids to share their stories with authorities and the media.

Lacey brought youth and police together in Auckland in the 1990s

In 2017 he took over an abandoned factory in Lancashire for performances that combined traditional English sheet music and Sufi chants.

The following year, he joined communities on both sides of the Irish border to organize a series of events that "pulled and removed" the barrier and drafted a manifesto outlining residents' feelings. Lacey then presented it to MPs in Westminster.

However, he hesitates to say how many projects like this have been done for the communities where he works. "I think the question of achieving certain goals with art is a difficult one," he said. "One thing I rarely trust is what an artist thinks of it." But she added, "I think you make a difference through your relationship… I enjoy relationships.

"This is my network of friends, so it's a sign of success. The fact that the piece functions like a work of art are a sign of success. About social cohesion, one does not expect immediate results."