Fisrtly, one should start at the beginning, watching the film footage of the actual event, looped and projected. It's necessary to put the scale of Procession into context. Deller’s floral garlands from the actual procession are displayed, investing the room with scent. For those who might see Procession as leaning too heavily on nostalgia, it could be said that as we observe the flowers that bear the legends ‘Wigan Casino’ and ‘Corn Exchange’ wilt in the Cornerhouse,  there is something of the plaintive hint of another era to them. But this does not make this a museum, rather, something living and still very much in the consciousness of Manchester and the north-west. On the top floor of the Cornerhouse there is even the heroically reconstructed (well done to the people who had to put the bloody thing up) ‘Valerie’s Tea-Bar’, amongst more procession banners and some excellent photography by Tim Sinclair.

We live in an age when publically funded art is hypothecated, sliced and diced to be of benefit and attraction to the mass public, where tickboxes are filled to ensure participation of this or that section of the community. Deller’s Procession is both rare and important, in that it does this perfectly, without condescension or resorting to schmaltz. The community acting as a grass-roots catalyst for the artist’s representations and ideas and participating on equal terms with him. Procession offers a kaleidoscope of history, ideas and struggle, celebrating, without triumphalism or patronisation, the extraordinary accomplishments of ‘normal’ people. It is astute, important and genuinely (if I may be allowed to use the following much-abused word) vibrant.