Category: Culture Radar

This week’s Culture Radar guest is the Joint CEO at RAWD (Random Acts of Wildness Disability), Steffi Sweeney.

Loved: Let Your Ideas Come Back As Children at the Bluecoat was brilliant, I went with my 2-year-old a couple of times.

Looking forward to: I am looking forward to the next Unity Scratch Night. Lee Leebo Luby is performing who is always boss to watch.

Trivia: Through my work at RAWD I am working with an artist called Alana. Alana communicates and accesses her computer via a chin switch and scanning method. We are making an autobiographical show and creating a new communication system that provides Alana the agency to direct in the rehearsal room, loads of learning. I’m loving it.

This week’s Culture Radar guest is the Director at Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre (BOARC), Angelina Moana.

Loved: I went to Bridewell Studios for the first time the other day, and loved it! The new exhibition “Ni de aquí, Ni de allá” by Talia Belen Laing and Stephanie Trujillo has wonderful tapestries, photos and hanging structures. The Unity Theatre has also had so many great shows lately – ‘Dark Mother’ by Lucy Hopkins was pure magic.

Looking forward to: BOARC’s Annual General Exchange is always something special and full of interesting discussions, hilltop walks and big group dinners. I’m also really looking forward to Woman | Women by Rowena Gander, which will be in theatres across the city this month. Each show is going to feature a new duet with a different performer, so I’m tempted to see them all!

Trivia: I’m also a founding member of Ugly Bucket Theatre, a Liverpool based physical comedy company, and at the time of writing – still very much in post-Edinburgh Fringe recovery mode!

This week’s Culture Radar guest is Stand up comic & Artistic Director of The Comedy Trust, Sam Avery.

Loved: I’m obviously biased but I’ve loved working on Liverpool Comedy Festival, specifically Doddy Day which celebrates the life and legacy of the late, great Sir Ken Dodd. Getting to know Lady Dodd throughout the process has been an absolute privilege – she has some of the best stories I’ve ever heard!

Looking forward to: I can’t wait for Christmas! The markets, the pantos, the cheeky afternoon pints down Dale Street. This city is so cosy in December.

Trivia: As a teenager I was the bass player in a nu-metal band. We toured with Motorhead and Napalm Death and even went on Top of the Pops 2. I had more hair then.

This week’s Culture Radar guest Jackie Pease, one of the (all volunteer) organisers and members of the DoES Liverpool community for almost eleven years.

Loved: I really enjoyed Transition Liverpool’s “Retrofitting Liverpool” event on 5th October. There was a wide range of knowledge and people, and it was good to look at realistic ways we can move from where we are now to a more sustainable future. You can read about it here and I believe they’re organising more events. I also recently went to the R.I.P. Germain Masterclass in the Studio/Lab at FACT. He was a great speaker and gave some good advice for people considering immersive works themselves. I managed to see the exhibition before it closed and I think I gained a lot by going to the talk first.

Looking forward to: I can hardly wait for River of Light. I love light installations! I know some people at DoES are creating light effects for a mass cycle ride during this year’s event.

Trivia: DoES Liverpool is a co-working, maker and event space. It’s been around for 13 and a half years and based in the Tapestry Building in Kempston Street for more than 6 years. We’ve got all sorts of kit, including laser cutters, CNC routers, 3D printers, sewing machines, embroidery machine, pen plotter, an electronics workbench and lots of electronics testing equipment.

We have all sorts of people at DoES from translators and sign language interpreters to economists and electronics specialists. Artists have been involved from the start, and it’s that mix that brings out new ideas and makes DoES what it is.

This week’s Culture Radar guest the Artistic Director and CEO of Liverpool Irish Festival, Emma Smith.

Loved: I certainly jumped at the gunshots — and laughed hard at Cameron McKendrink’s ‘drip-of-shame’ jeans, before he got covered in gunk — in The Lieutenant of Inishmore at The Everyman. I took the Brickworks exhibit at Tate Liverpool + RIBA North a little more seriously (on ’til January and well worth a look)!

Looking forward to: I’m not really allowed to say the Liverpool Irish Festival (17-27 Oct) am I? That covered, John Grant at The Philharmonic and The People’s Pyramid/Day of the Dead have both been in my diary for some time. No doubt the city’s River of Light will draw plenty of people down to the waterfront, too. Being from Leicester originally, I am a bit of a sucker for Diwali.

Trivia: People who know me well know: I love nothing more that getting in to a pottery class (Lark Lane and Altar Pottery are both brilliant) and making a mess of myself. I throw pots mainly and have not long completed a collection plate for the Liverpool Irish Famine memorial. If I don’t go for a while I start to miss the clay!

This week’s Culture Radar guest is the Head of English at the University of Liverpool, Greg Lynall.

Loved: The illuminating Creatures of the Nile exhibition at the University of Liverpool’s Garstang Museum.

Looking forward to: There will be a great new season of concerts starting this month at The Tung Auditorium, the University of Liverpool’s state-of-the-art concert Hall. In October I’m looking forward to the Liverpool Literary Festival featuring an eclectic line up of best-selling novelists, poets, and critically-acclaimed screenwriters and actors!

Trivia: My department has teamed up with Collective Encounters, the arts charity who use theatre for social change, to create Voices on the Streets, a sound journey that you can download to your phone and use to explore the city.

This week’s Culture Radar guest is Director, Art in Liverpool CIC, Patrick Kirk-Smith.

Loved: Material Matters have the perfect blend of gettable and critical thinking. Into The Wyld, which re-draws the tale of Sir Gawain for modern day Wirral, is their latest unmissable exhibition at the Williamson. 

Looking forward to: There’s a lot to look forward to over the next few months. FACT’s Art Play Games looks exciting; Open Eye’s The Flowers Still Grow looks joyful; and there’s a rare chance for the public to see inside The Athenaeum with their collaborative show with Smithdown Social… and it’s a way off, and I’m biased, but keep your eyes peeled for Independents Biennial next summer. 

Trivia: Art in Liverpool turns twenty this month. Twenty! It started out as a Liverpool Biennial fan-blog, and has documented most visual art events in Liverpool ever since. You can grab a commemorative 20th birthday issue of our newspaper around LCR this month. 

This week our Culture Radar guest is the Tmesis Theatre Performer, Stephanie Greer.

Loved: The Bee exhibition at the World Museum was really magical. I gorgeous mix of art and information. I would highly recommend it.

Looking forward to: The River of Light and Headstrung’s Monster Disco coming to The Unity! – I have a 5 year old so am always looking for ways we can engage with the city’s arts and culture scene as a family.

Trivia: I started off my theatrical endeavours as the back end of a camel when I was 13 and have played countless animals since! I’m about to tour as a selkie (half seal half human) in Tmesis Theatre‘s international tour of SEALSKIN. Lots of dates in the UK so don’t miss it!

This week our Culture Radar guest is Open Eye Gallery’s Joint Head of Social Practice, Sophie Mahon.

Loved: I’ve loved seeing our partnership programme with The Life Rooms develop. It’s been great to work with so many people from across Liverpool and get them excited about photography, from photo walks to pop-up exhibitions; this has been a real pleasure to be involved with!

The Life Rooms provide free, short courses aimed to enable people to become more active in their own health and support wellbeing. As part of our collaborative approach, Open Eye Gallery works in partnership with the Life Rooms to deliver a series of photography courses across all three of their sites in Walton (North Liverpool), Bootle and Southport (Sefton).

Looking forward to: I’m excited for The Flowers Still Grow, our socially engaged photography show at Open Eye Gallery! The exhibition showcases some incredible long-term, collaborative projects that photographers, writers and communities have been working on together throughout the last two years. This time, we’re celebrating the people who make up the communities of Anfield and Garston whilst reflecting on their concerns, experiences, and aspirations of the society around them. The exhibition launches on 12th September at 6 pm – everyone is welcome!

Trivia: Open Eye Gallery is more than just a building! We work with communities and venues all year round, and last year alone welcomed over 200,000 people to creative projects in other venues and communities across the city region – so there’s lots of ways to get involved with the work we do year-round!