As part of a new programme centred around the Bluecoat’s cultural legacies, a new free exhibition, A Creative Community, will launch on 8th September 2021.
The Bluecoat has been a home for working artists for over a hundred years. From the first group of artists who occupied the former school building in 1907, through to the present day, this ‘creative community’ remains at the heart of the Bluecoat, with some 20 artists and creatives occupying studios today. A Creative Community will tell the story of these artists through material drawn from the art centre’s extensive archive.
Formally established in 1927 as the UK’s first art centre, the Bluecoat is housed in central Liverpool’s oldest building which has a long and complex history. The Cultural Legacies programme focuses on the Bluecoat’s wider impact, starting with its support for artists.
Two further focuses, the civic role of the arts centre, and interrogating colonial legacies, will follow between November and March 2022. All three are intended to explore the idea of the arts centre as providing space for critical reflection and engagement.
The exhibition reflects a key aim for the Bluecoat as an arts organisation: to ‘unlock creative process’, and it provides a behind the scenes glimpse of this happening.