“I only moved to Manchester last year but as soon as I was introduced to Afflecks it felt like I was walking into my teenage dream.” - Katie Scott

Thanks to Katie Scott we’ve brought some colour to our Church Street wall. Katie is fairly new to the scene and told us that she learned to spray paint over lockdown, and practised in her garden until she connected with other artists who took her out painting around the city. Since then she’s painted full time and we love the collage of everything Afflecks that she’s created for us: “I wanted to include a little bit of every store in the artwork. Fashion, music, art and attitude, then combine them all in one big colourful collage that celebrates the creativity of Afflecks”

We all know the bee is synonymous with Manchester but amongst the Afflecks subcultures represented in the mural you’ll spot a different winged creature - the Peppered Moth. The moth tells a story of evolution and industrialisation and is as significant a symbol for Manchester as our worker bee. 

The moth, pale with dark speckles, blended perfectly against trees but as the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s kicked off, a darker variety of the moth started to appear. As trees made way for warehouses and smog became commonplace, blackening the buildings of the city, the moth adapted to camouflage itself and the first dark moth was recorded in Manchester in 1848. This was a similar time to Darwin’s studies on evolution and the moth demonstrated the survival of the fittest and won over many evolution sceptics. 

We’ve always kept art at the heart of Afflecks, with Mark Kennedy’s famous mosaics celebrating Manchester movers and shakers, and in 2021, along with Manchester City Council, we supported the revival of Lemn Sissay and Tim Rushton’s Flags - the poem in the pavement running the length of Tib Street which is part of the fabric of the Northern Quarter. 

Art was one of the key catalysts for change in the Northern Quarter of the late 90s, and it continues to refresh the streetscape, make social commentary, and attract artists from across the world. We’re so happy to play a part in that story; as a street art canvas, as well as a home to artists’ collectives such as S.W.A.L.K Creative.