Community Post Type: News

Unlocking Public Sector Opportunities is a free workshop designed to help Liverpool businesses better understand how to engage with public sector procurement and position themselves for new opportunities with Liverpool City Council and other public sector organisations.

The session will include:

Guidance from Liverpool City Council’s Procurement Team

Practical advice on finding and responding to tender opportunities

Tips for writing stronger submissions

Insight into social value requirements

Networking opportunities with other local businesses

The event is particularly relevant for:

Liverpool-based SMEs

Creative agencies and professional services businesses

Organisations interested in supplying goods or services to the public sector

Event details:

Wednesday 13 May, 10:00am – 12:00pm, Barclays Eagle Lab Liverpool

Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/unlocking-public-sector-opportunities-tickets-1988062041082

A seminal day in the building of the Northern Flowerhouse movement. Hear from Fergus Garrett, the Singh Twins, Nantes, Sheffield and more

The Northern Flowerhouse is a movement born from conversations, exchanges, visits, goodwill and, above all, from collective action. Born from a meeting in Everton, reflecting on their experience of the Grow Wild England Flagship wildflower programme with Hulme, the concept of wildflowers as essential infrastructure, requiring serious investment and care has spread. In Liverpool schools and community groups of all sizes have joined in sowing events, workshops, celebratory events and harvests, leading us to establish Scouse Flowerhouse as a charitable co-operative. They believe that Beauty is a Birthright, as Jamie Reid wrote, and subscribe to working with our hands, minds and hearts in equal measure.

Scouse Flowerhouse members love to connect with like-minded groups across the North and beyond: like Talking Plants in Sheffield, Manchester Green Infrastructure Network, Groundwork, Kendal’s Nature Recovery Network, gardeners and artists and ecologists and people passionate about their local neighbourhoods like GalGael in Govan and Aproxima Arts in Glasgow. The Northern Flowerhouse is not about one size fits all, it is about creating connections and a magnetism to invite curious folk to assist in restoring wildflower habitats across our cities and edgelands. It’s not difficult work, but it does require powers of observation and a sensibility to nurture rather than tame our wild habitats. Nature does a lot of the work in producing the seed and creating the beauty, given the right starting points and substrates, most often readily available close to home.

Fergus Garrett, their Patron, will share his generous insights into what makes a garden, and the Singh Twins will speak about how their artworks depict flowers and nature in symbolic, political and personal ways. We will hear from inspirational work in cities across Northern Europe: Nantes, Sheffield, Doncaster and Manchester, and Alistair McIntosh will close the day talking about the possibilities of land reform from a Scottish perspective.

So this Assembly is about growing their movement and sharing ideas and practice to make our green spaces, parks and gardens more beautiful and better interconnected. They’d love you to come and help to weave a web of biodiversity across the North with the grit and spirit, the ambition and humour which our communities are so well-known for. If we are to reverse biodiversity loss, we need to act boldly and collectively. They’re delighted that the RHS, the Eden Project and PlanIt are backing the day on June 18th.

On the 19th they’ll continue with action and workshops at St Vincent’s School and you are welcome to stay for a community build over the weekend if you would like to. Please email any queries to events@scouseflowerhouse.org and we will keep updating this page over the next few days and weeks.

For tickets, visit here

As Liverpool’s longest-running writing and literary festival, WoWFEST has always held fast to the belief that words do not simply describe the world – they reshape it.

In a moment marked by democratic backsliding, spiralling inequality, algorithmic manipulation and the renewed swagger of authoritarianism, WoWFEST26: New World Disorder confronts the forces fracturing our common ground: the rise of AI without accountability, the mainstreaming of far-right ideologies, the weaponisation of disinformation, escalating global conflict and an economic order rigged in favour of the ultra-wealthy.

But this is not a festival of despair. It is a festival of resistance. WoWFEST will foreground writers, artists and activists who refuse inevitability – who challenge power, expose injustice and imagine alternatives. In the face of manufactured chaos, we choose solidarity. In the shadow of reaction, we choose creativity. Together, we reclaim language as a site of struggle and possibility – and insist that another world is not only necessary, but possible.

Each year, the festival brings together writers, artists, activists and audiences to share stories, question power and explore how creativity can support resistance, solidarity and social change. WoWFEST26 will once again showcase outstanding progressive writing alongside bold, generous and thought-provoking conversations, shaped by the social and political moment we are living in and driven by hope, collective action and the belief that culture can open up new possibilities for change.

Over the years, WoWFEST has welcomed an extraordinary range of writers and thinkers, including Akala, Munroe Bergdorf, Pauline Black, Jo Brand, John Cooper Clarke, Anne Enright, Bernardine Evaristo, Shon Faye, Armando Iannucci, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Francesca Martinez, Ben Okri, Jon Ronson, Michael Rosen, Alexei Sayle, Will Self, Joelle Taylor, Kit De Waal, Ruby Wax, Gary Younge and Benjamin Zephaniah. Irvine Welsh once described WoWFEST as ‘the best writing festival in the world’. Our reputation is built on collaboration, risk-taking and genuinely community-led programming.

Alongside live events, Writing on the Wall’s wider work celebrates creative heritage, uncovers overlooked archives and amplifies voices too often marginalised or excluded from mainstream narratives. At its heart, WoWFEST is about connection -between past and present, culture and community, art and action, and about the role creativity can play in building a more just, inclusive and joyful society.

For full WoWFest26 listings, visit here

A ground-breaking exhibition exploring stories and the impact of suicide is to open in Liverpool’s historic Cunard Building this September.

Developed in collaboration with Merseyside-based community arts organisation Heart of Glass, Close to Home, is more than an exhibition. It is an act of witness, inviting audiences into a space of contemplation, of reflection, of quiet assembly. Built upon lived and living experience of suicidal thoughts and attempts, and of bereavement by suicide, it has been created by award-winning artist Mark Storor as an integral part of the collaborative arts project, The Suicide Chronicles.

Taking place between 3 September and 10 October 2026, including World Suicide Prevention Day (10 Sept) and World Mental Health Day (10 Oct), Close to Home brings together more than seven years’ work by Mark, in collaboration with communities and individuals across England, Ireland and Wales with experience of suicide. Mark’s innate ability to depict personal stories and experiences through art will create a philosophical space that attempts to express and articulate the unsayable around an issue that often exists in silence, while acknowledging and honouring the experiences of those we have lost.

Patrick Fox, CEO of Heart of Glass, said: “When we started the project with Mark in 2018, we had no expectation of how long it would last or where it would take us. We quickly realised after the first Chronicle this was an artistic interrogation we had to carry forward to encompass as many voices and experiences as possible, to give them the time and space to be seen and heard.

“The subject of suicide, its impact on self, family, on nation, on people and communities the world over is a fundamental part of life. Through each of the six Chronicles we’ve worked with 50   people who have been impacted by suicide, and with research showing that one suicide can impact approximately 135 people, it’s a heartbreaking statistic. Each Chronicle or ‘chapter’ is uniquely defined by the experience of the individuals who made them and the time in which they were made. While they are different in content, they speak to each other collectively to give form to the infinitely complex and multi-layered nature of bereavement by suicide. The seventh chapter is Close to Home.”

Heart of Glass originally commissioned Mark to develop a project that would examine some of the difficult and challenging questions resulting from the impacts of suicide: In a world which demands action and reaction, what does it mean to contemplate, to give ourselves over to time, to listen, to make sense together?

At the time of commission in 2018, St Helens had the highest suicide rate in England and Wales, and the Suicide Chronicles project was born in response to the many stories of loss in a town emblematic of a devastating national trend. St Helens was a town prepared collectively to address this, to find a language and a model of practice that did not exist, allowing Mark to work with the local community and individuals using collaborative arts methodologies to address what is happening in our society.

Through the Chronicles he has brought together multiple experiences of suicide, including those of women bereaved by the suicide of their partners; of farmers with respect to their relationship to the land, and of the high rate of suicide amongst them. There are stories told from intergenerational perspectives of the impact of teen suicide on a community, and insight into the experiences of first responders on the front line of suicide.

Mark’s process of co-creation and collaboration has developed a multifaceted residency in the Cunard Building, which is animated throughout its duration, including live performance, poetry, music, film, digital installations, sculptures, animation and photography. Each work is particular; poignant, vivid and truthful, shining light on individuals’ stories.

Mark Storor said: “Close to Home will bring all six Chronicles into one space, addressing together, for the first time, what is happening in our communities as the result of suicide. Like suicide, Close to Home is not an end but part of a continuum. The courage to meet the stark realities of suicide head on began in St Helens and gained momentum; a ripple effect generated through the numerous stories I am humbled to have had shared with me.

“It’s the journey we’ve been on, the people we’ve met and worked with, the years that have passed, and the moments that have led to the here and now. It’s a contemplation, a philosophical space, an exploration, an interrogation, and it’s as much about life as it is about death. Visitors will be able to explore their relationship with self, with one another, with those across the world, hopefully to value what fundamentally connects us all as humans. I hope that those who have been impacted by suicide will gain a strength from collectively witnessing together the stories of others and understand that art can have a role in all our lives for gaining renewed outlook, relief, strength and remembrance.”

Close to Home will bring together work that has been made through The Suicide Chronicles to form a six-week residency and public programme in Liverpool City Centre, with partner events in St Helens. Over the six weeks, audiences will be invited to spend time with the artworks of The Suicide Chronicles, to witness each person’s story and to bring their stories too, recognising that suicide resides within the experience of being human, the unequivocal connection between life and death that we all share.

Hosted in the Cunard Building in Liverpool, during its residency the Chronicles will evolve further through a programme of performances and conversations with guests, along with plans to create space for city-wide conversations, and access to support for those that need it to form a legacy beyond the display of Close to Home, from which to learn, reflect, connect and reach out for help when needed.

Close to Home has been made possible with funding from Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and is presented in partnership with Liverpool City Council, Culture Liverpool and Public Health Liverpool.

Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing and Culture, Councillor Harry Doyle, said: “Culture Liverpool and Public Health Liverpool are proud to be partnering with Heart of Glass on this important and poignant project.

“Suicide remains a public health priority for Liverpool and our prevention work continues to grow, but the fact that we still don’t talk openly about suicide and it remains a “taboo” subject is one of the biggest challenges in our work.

“By collaborating with partners on projects like Close to Home, we can use the power of art and culture to break down barriers and bring our communities together to learn and reflect, create space for important conversations, and provide access to support for those that need it.

“Talking about mental health and suicide can be difficult, but it’s one of the most important things we can do – research shows that open conversations can raise awareness, break down stigma, encourage people to seek help, and support their wellbeing.

“We are committed to fostering a community where people feel able to speak openly, share their feelings, and access the help they need.”

www.heartofglass.org.uk/CloseToHome

Content advisory: Close to Home explores lived and living experiences of suicide and bereavement. It does not depict suicide, but it does engage with themes that some people may find emotionally challenging. People are welcome to engage in whatever way feels right for them, and support information will be available throughout a visit.

 

To celebrate Liverpool Music Month, on Saturday 23rd May The Halcyon Syncopators tune into New York with Jazz On A May Night.

Celebrate all things New York with New York State of Mind, (Billy Joel), Sunday In New York (Bobby Darin), Manhattan, a medley of tunes from the musical 42nd Street, Broadway (Count Basie), Autumn in New York (a new arrangement by our own Coby O’Brien), Echoes of Harlem (Duke Ellington) and of course the Sinatra classic New York New York.

Tyrone Lewis, Rebecca Loy and Jemimah Akaunu share the vocal honours, so please join us in our favourite summertime venue, Sefton Park Cricket Club.

Tickets £15.00 + £1.26 booking fee from Ticket Source or via their Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/events/944537041324342

As part of its anniversary year, the Palm House is hosting a display in Liverpool’s Central Library to celebrate how a group of people changed the future of this iconic city landmark, 25 years ago in 2001.

Opening on Thursday 7 May until 27 August, the display situated on the third floor of Central Library called Save It! will document the decline and dereliction of the Palm House from the 1950s to the 1980s, and the journey towards its restoration and reopening.

Featuring archive material from Liverpool Record Office, including photographs, fundraising material and personal stories, Save It! will use the Palm House’s 25-year anniversary to honour and celebrate the tenacity and generosity of the local community and core team of campaigners, who joined together to save it following years of damage and neglect.

For more information, visit here

There comes a certain point in an individuals development when, no matter the wonders of the therapeutic approach or the will we put behind it, we find ourselves hitting a limit in our progression.

Where questions of why something won’t release or reveal consume us and an unease persists that we can’t give explanation to. As our life experiences can’t give account for it, there is often a feeling of guilt for our failure to transcend it, furthering a sense of disconnection and longing. This point is a threshold. As this urgency burns within us we are pushed to go deeper, to surrender and connect back to the infinite intelligence and dynamic field of life that holds us.

Constellation Practice offers us such an opportunity. It invites us to move beyond doubt and self refusal as we witness others, without any background knowledge, embody aspects of the ancestral stories held within us. As they playout previously unseen relationship dynamics for the field of life to adjust and heal, we might be well reminded, that each of us arrived in this world without our own strategising or design and that this same force longs to take us forward, if we just open up to let it.

Opening the group circle in Constellational practice creates the conditions in which the phenomenology of embodied witnessing breaks down judgemental perspectives, destabilising stuck narratives and habitual thinking which restricts personal and collective growth. As a radically different approach to group healing it takes us beyond the limits of rational thinking. Revealing each human being as a constant evolution of movements, deeply interwoven and held by legacies of ancestry, material histories, environmental context, archetype and myth. it allows us to actively embrace such intricate complexity to bring change to personal circumstances and direction.

Developing on from last years workshops, Fi Fane-James, Charlene Murphy, Cathy Kamau and Stella Cairns will come together again to host this 3 day retreat. Trained across a multitude of practices and engage in different areas of study, this offering is not linked to any singular tradition or spiritual framework. Heavily indebted to out root teacher, Ron Young, whose practice sits at the intersection of many wisdom lineages, the call is to come in the fullness of your own histories of faith and systems of belief.

Ron worked along side Hellinger from 2006-10, to develop The Deep Field Constellations, Movements of the Spirit Mind and The Sacred Spiritual Constellations work. We integrate these forms of the practice alongside movements from the original Family and Organisational work. Freely following whats called for in the space we trust each work resonates to serve all in attendance.

More info on the practice and bio’s can be found in the brochure.

Liverpool is gearing up for the launch of its very first Music Month, which begins Friday, 1 May.

Delivered by Culture Liverpool and Sound City, the inaugural Liverpool Music Month will run throughout May and will see live performances, cultural events, and community activity take place across the city region, before transitioning into Liverpool Summer of Music, which will run until September.

This unique celebration of live music spotlights the artists, venues and communities that have made Liverpool a UNESCO City of Music, and the programme is twinned with New York Music Month, an established fixture in New York City’s cultural calendar which will feature 60-plus events when it returns for its 9th year this June.

Ahead of the official start of Liverpool Music Month, a special event will take place on Liverpool’s iconic Snowdrop ferry on Thursday 30 April. ‘Live on the Mersey’ will feature an acoustic performance from Merseybeat troubadours Keyside, alongside sets from some of Liverpool City Region’s most exciting new artists, all set against the backdrop of the city’s world-famous skyline.

Liverpool Music Month will then officially begin on Friday 1 May at Sound City Plus conference, when Shira Gans, Senior Executive Director for Policy and Programmes at New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and founder of New York Music Month, will hand over the baton from New York – creating a transatlantic partnership between two of the world’s great music cities.

The rest of the month will see a huge range of gigs, new commissions, pop-up performances, and community-led events take place throughout the region, celebrating the full spectrum of Liverpool’s music scene from grassroots to global.

Kicking off the programme, Sound City Festival will bring both homegrown and international talent to wider prominence over the weekend of Saturday 2 to Sunday 3 May 2026.

The Dark Reign Metal Fest also takes place at Birkenhead’s Future Yard on Saturday 2 May, and performances by Emmy Lou Harris, The Longest Johns, Kingfishr, Biird, Sunny Afternoon, James Morrison, and Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox are among those being spotlighted during the four-week-long celebration.

At the Liverpool Philharmonic, gigs across all genres will take place on most days, including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Celebration of the Beach Boys, Roland Gift Presents Fine Young Cannibals, Max Cooper, and US acts Hannah Wicklund and Ondara.

Merseyside pop superstar Melanie C will also be headlining a series of performances at Jacaranda Baltic on May 1.

Wrapping up the month, Baltic Weekender is set to take over multiple venues across Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 May, including Camp and Furnace and Brick Street, with a line-up of up-to-date house music, disco, techno, bass, and grime sets.

For full details of all live performances taking place across the month, including how to get your tickets, visit: https://liverpoolmusiccity.com/whats-on/.

Special street performances will also take place as part of Liverpool Music Month, including Katumba (drum line) on 2 May from 3:00pm – 3:30pm and Sky Valley Mistress on 3 May from 3:30pm – 3:50pm, both outside The Jacaranda on Slater Street. Other pop-up performances will appear across the city throughout May.

As the month draws to a close, focus will shift to Liverpool Summer of Music, a city-region-wide celebration of live music and cultural events taking place from June through to August, supported by the Liverpool City Region Destination Partnership.   The programme will shine a spotlight on the full calendar of festivals, concerts, and events taking place across the Liverpool City Region, from the city centre to the communities and neighbourhoods throughout the boroughs.

Liverpool Summer of Music will highlight influential independent venues – such as 24 Kitchen Street, The Jacaranda, and other cutting-edge indoor and outdoor spaces that continue to nurture new waves of artists – and major city events including Foo Fighters and My Chemical Romance’s huge Anfield Stadium shows, Lewis Capaldi taking over Sefton Park, and festival headline favourites Nile Rodgers & Chic performing at Lock and Quay in Bootle.

During Liverpool Summer of Music, local venues, promoters, artists, and music organisations have also been invited to deliver their own events, performances, training opportunities, and creative activations with support from a dedicated commissioning fund, provided by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.

The fund will help ensure Summer of Music reflects the creativity and diversity of the city region’s music scene, supporting grassroots activity and enabling new ideas and collaborations to take place across the region. Applications are currently being reviewed, and details of the successful commissions will be shared in due course.

Liverpool Music Month and Liverpool Summer of Music are set to build on the global momentum created when the city hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023, an event watched by 162 million people worldwide and which generated more than £54 million for the local economy.

Together, Liverpool Music Month and Liverpool Summer of Music invite music lovers from across the UK and beyond to experience the best live music the region has to offer, reinforcing Liverpool’s reputation as one of the world’s great music cities while ensuring the benefits of music tourism are felt across the entire city region.