Rochdale Canal in fog 1996
I am very interested in the quintessential quality of places.
Quintessential refers in the ancient and medieval philosophy to the ‘fifth element’ of a substance, the others being air, fire, earth and water. The quintessence of something is its purest and most concentrated essential form, the essential and most typical class or example of a thing.
‘Quintessentially Manchester’ is a term I’ve often overused, but what does it mean? It can be difficult to pin down, but it’s something you have a gut feeling for, it’s all about intuition and sensitivity.
When I feature places on Eye On Manchester, I am looking for this quintessential quality. Mostly you won’t find this information on conventional listings websites or tourism guides which are compiled remotely.
The quintessential quality of a place can be a mix of many factors:
- The mood and atmosphere of a place. This can be influenced by weather and time of day or night
- The inherent character of the landscape and architecture
- The people out and about there
- Its nostalgic quality – I have invented the term ‘chronoempathic’, when a location seems to conjure up a sense of past times and other eras
- The music associated with a place – Manchester has a lot to offer here.
- Some x-factor that’s difficult to define.
I am developing a format that combines the objective, information-based methods of, say, technology reviews, with an intuitive, impressionistic appreciation, using improvised descriptive qualities like ‘inner-city grittiness factor’ ‘council estate chic-ness rating’
My aim is to capture and celebrate the quintessential quality of places in and around Manchester, and encourage others to be sensitive to it. Many individuals, local authorities and developers are oblivious to it and may have a tendency to destroy it.
In this way I will continue to document and showcase locations across Manchester – in words and photographs. In another post I’ll talk about using the photographic image to capture the quintessential quality of places.