At Manchester's Mayfield Park the bees are literally buzzing as they dart among the lavender and blooms. The city's first new park for a century has exploded into floral life in its first summer - and it will be the simply stunning location for Manchester International Festival's big opening event for its 2023 return.
Each Tiny Drop is the name of the huge free opener at Mayfield Park on the evening of June 29. It will see hundreds of people head to the park for a walk of magical reflection with the sounds of a live choir and calming water sounds.
The creation of the park itself unlocked the River Medlock from its culvert, and it is the waters here that have inspired the major new arts premiere. Artist Risham Syed and director Angie Bual will draw on ancient practices and river rituals from South Asian culture in what is described as a "restorative event that honours our connection to water-and to one another".
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What that means in practice? Well, for visitors arriving at the park for the MIF opening event, there will be plenty to alight all the senses.
On entry to the park, there will be spectacular kinetic sculptures created by Savinder Baul, where waters, transported from the River Soan in Pakistan will trickle over. Guests will collect one of 3,000 specially-created tiny clay pots to collect droplets of water from the sculptures.
You will then carefully walk your water through the park, listening to a community choir from across Greater Manchester singing South Asian poetry. If you so wish, you will be encouraged to join in with the song too.
The idea is to steward the River Soan water you have gathered to feed back into the River Medlock - in celebration of the life source we so often take for granted. It will also give time to reflect on the effects of river pollution that remains as topical as ever amid sewage dumping across the world.
Risham is an acclaimed visual artist from Lahore in Pakistan, and is here in Manchester to bring Each Tiny Drop to life next week. As we walk through the park alongside director Angie, we talk about what the project means to them, and what they hope it will mean to visitors.
Risham said: "This is an event to feel connected, to hear the ancient sounds and feel connected with it. To think about the world we live in and what little things can be done to counter the ill effects - to consciously maybe take decisions on a day to day basis that affect our life that we usually don’t think about and to feel connected to the rest of the world."
Angie said: "There are river rituals all over the world, where we are reminded to care for our waters - and this is time to regain our connection to the River Medlock. It's a river that has been here for 2,000 years, but only recently reborn due to this park.
"It’s a really simple offer - we invite you to come out of your busy day and pay an ode to the River Medlock which is back to life. We ask audiences to cherish each tiny drop and let it join the Medlock in a poetic and mindful action."
Risham will be joined by her 19-year-old daughter to sing alongside the choir during the event on Thursday evening. The song will be in Punjabi, but cards with phonetic pronunciation will be offered to invite everybody to join in with the song while they walk through the park.
The tiny pots that visitors collect their water in will be there's to keep at the end of their walk - which is set to take around half an hour to complete. The event is free, but guests will enter in timed slots throughout the night. The initial ticket run has all been booked, but guests can also turn up on the night and wait for a timed interval to walk through.
While the idea behind the event is a simple one - of community coming together for reflection - there have been plenty of logistical hoops to jump through to get the art premiere ready. For instance transporting the required amount of water from Pakistan to Manchester, talks with the River Trust, and the water going through a sterilisation process.
Risham says: "The idea is that when you add a drop of water to a huge quantity - it takes on the same identity."
Angie adds: "It’s a meditative experience, we are encouraging you to contemplate and to think about how your water has really got here, and of course we are all 80 per cent water so how that flows in people too.
"It's a time to cherish our waterways. I asked the River Trust what people can do to help, and they said if everyone stopped kicking things down the drain, if everyone thought twice about what they chucked down the loo it would make a big effect. All of us, like the tiny drop, collectively we can make a massive change."
Each Tiny Drop is at Mayfield Park on Thursday June 29 from 6pm to 10pm. Timed slots are now all booked, but drop in will be available on the night where you can wait for the next available moment to walk through. Entry is free.
