Opening of PAC@75: Pan African Congress 75th Anniversary Celebrations

We are determined to be free. We want education. We want the right to earn a decent living; the right to express our thoughts and emotions, to adopt and create forms of beauty… We will fight in every way we can for freedom, democracy and social betterment.

The Challenge to the Colonial Powers, Statement from the Fifth Pan-African Congress, Manchester 1945.

Michael Gorman, Senior Learning and Teaching Fellow for the Manchester School of Art, and his team of postgraduate students, have created a visual tribute which provides a stunning memorial of the holding of the 5th Pan African Congress conference in Manchester in 1945. Colours of the Pan African Congress will be projected on to the old Town Hall façade, now the front of the Manchester Met New Arts and Humanities Building, and words from the Pan African Congress Manifesto, produced at the Manchester conference, will be projected within the entrance. This is a visual installation which sets the New Arts and Humanities building as a venerable beacon of the past, with the use of contemporary lighting to project this to Manchester.

This event signals the inauguration of the PAC@75 celebrations, with representatives from all participating universities.

Due to COVID-19 restricted working conditions, there will be no live event taking place on site. Instead, the Opening of PAC@75 will feature a film recording which will be live-streamed on YouTube on the PAC@75 channel.