Community Post Type: News

Proving that our fascination with the ancient world shows no signs of stopping, this autumn World Museum will host a packed series of events featuring broadcaster and academic Professor Mary Beard and leading author Natalie Haynes, as well as experts from National Museums Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool.

Inspired by the Return of the Gods exhibition, talks and tours will bring to life just how the Emperors ruled, how people lived and how the gods presided – and why the ancient goddesses cast just as powerful a gaze as their male counterparts.

National Museums Liverpool will be hosting an evening in conversation with acclaimed author and broadcaster Professor Mary Beard on Friday 15 December to discuss her new book ‘Emperor of Rome’ and her career as the world’s most famous classicist. The event will explore the colourful and infamous rulers of ancient times.

Bestselling author Natalie Haynes will introduce her new book ‘Divine Might’, delving into powerful and lesser told stories of the ancient Greek goddesses, on Saturday 25 November. The event is in collaboration with Classics for All North and will include a chance to explore World Museum’s special exhibition Return of the Gods and encounter some of the featured goddesses like Athena and Artemis up close.

A host of expert talks will reveal more on the lives of people in ancient times, including; The ever-lasting influence of ancient fashion by Dr Lee Wright, fashion historian from Liverpool John Moores University on Saturday 7 October and Wining and dining like the ancient gods with Dr Chrissy Partheni, Curator of Classical Antiquities at National Museums Liverpool on Saturday 2 December.

Delving into the more mystical side of things, Jordan Poole from the University of Liverpool will reveal how magic existed in ancient times in a fascinating talk on How amulets protected the ancient world on Saturday 9 December. While Dr Georgia Petridou, Reader in Ancient Greek History at the University of Liverpool, will explore the myth of the abduction of Persephone by the god of the Underworld, Hades –  one of the ancient world’s most popular albeit darker tales in The cult of Persephone and Demeter on Saturday 16 December.

Tactile and BSL curator tours will offer a chance for visitors to experience the popular Return of the Gods exhibition in a different way, guided by the subject expert. Family visitors can also enjoy specially curated events for all ages including messy play sessions inspired by ancient pottery and mosaics.

Dr. Chrissy Partheni, Curator of Classical Antiquities at National Museums Liverpool said,

“We are thrilled to be hosting a packed season of events in collaboration with acclaimed authors, academics and well-known figures in the world of Classics, to delve even further into the world of ancient life and mythology.

“Our Return of the Gods exhibition at World Museum has been immensely popular since we opened, and proves that the enduring fascination with the myths and legends of ancient times shows no signs of stopping. Stories of heroism, rivalry, jealousy and adventure continue to capture the imagination of all ages and we are so pleased to be playing a part in bringing that to life for visitors through our incredible collections.”

 

 

On Friday 20 and Saturday 21 October 2023, FACT celebrates its 20th Birthday with a weekend of free events for all to enjoy. Marking two decades since the opening of the acclaimed arts centre in Liverpool, the celebrations include the unveiling of two new major exhibitions, talks by contemporary artists and influential figures, family-friendly activities, the grand opening of Studio/Lab – a dedicated space for artistic experimentation, and a birthday party.

Friday 20 October 2023

FACT is thrilled to unveil two new immersive exhibitions by Jenkin van Zyl and Uma Breakdown alongside a day of talks from artists, curators, and sector leaders. Across three panels, speakers reflect on the possibilities of art to inspire more activist outcomes, what artists need in terms of support from institutions, and how the landscape of art and creative technology has changed over the years since FACT opened.

Panelists and guest speakers include Nicola Triscott (CEO/Director, FACT); Eddie Berg (Founding Director, FACT); Ruth McCullough (Former Director, Abandon Normal Devices); Helen Starr (Curator); Dr. Alan Dunn (Artist); Jack Ky Tan (Artist); Dr. Emma Murray (Criminologist-in-Residence at FACT); Larry Achiampong (Artist); David Blandy (Artist); Zinzi Minott (Artist); and Isabel Ramos of Keiken (Artist).

To conclude Friday, FACT is delighted to partner with Mandela8 to present a screening of their latest film. From Dream to Reality follows the journey and realisation of a new memorial to Nelson Mandela in Princes Park, Liverpool. Joining the celebrations, Picturehouse is proud to present a curated 35mm double-bill of Repo Man and Walker from acclaimed director Alex Cox.

Saturday 21 October 2023

The festivities continue into Saturday, offering a lineup of free events and interactive experiences throughout the day. Highlights include guided tours, artist performances, family-friendly workshops, gaming tournaments and celebratory parties.

Visitors are welcome to explore Studio/Lab – a new space dedicated to artistic development and experimentation – to play with motion tracking technology, virtual reality, live 3D sculpting and VJing. Studio/Lab will play a key part in FACT’s future, providing emerging artists with support and equipment through funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator Programme and The Foyle Foundation.

Artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy host an engaging afternoon of gaming tournaments and conversation suitable for all ages, while artist Jenkin van Zyl and a group of local young people lead a tour designed to share their unique perspective on van Zyl’s immersive exhibition. Artists-in-residence The (new) Constellation will also present behind-the-scenes content from their recent commission alongside a costumed performance.

In the evening, visitors are invited to the opening of two major solo exhibitions by Jenkin van Zyl and Uma Breakdown. Breakdown’s multimedia installation, Earth A.D. 2 (2023), explores the structures and history of Gothic narratives, and their creative relationships to time, space, identity and social relations. Van Zyl’s Surrender (2023) transforms the galleries into a series of immersive environments. From the belly of a rat to an energy-drink-lined trophy room, van Zyl’s hallucinatory film explores ideas of productivity, escapism and community. As part of the celebrations, van Zyl has also created a new short film that expands his psychotropic world, which will be available to view from inside a limousine at the opening.

The festivities culminate with an official after party at District in the Baltic Triangle (61 Jordan St, Liverpool L1 0BE). FACT has partnered with local promoters PLUSH and Social Hours to curate the evening’s musical lineup, alongside cabaret performances programmed by EAT ME, and a special headline DJ set by exhibiting artist, Jenkin van Zyl.

Nicola Triscott, CEO/Director at FACT, said: “In 2003, FACT was Liverpool’s first purpose-built arts centre for more than 60 years, brought into reality by a grassroots campaign for a centre for film and the then emerging field of electronic art. It grew out of the extraordinary success of the city’s Video Positive festival and was a landmark moment for Liverpool and the UK, giving moving image and digital art a home in which to experiment and find a national and international audience. In 2023, as we mark the centre’s 20th birthday, we celebrate that rich history and look towards FACT’s next twenty years as a place where we nurture the next generation of artists and filmmakers and enable new stories to be told through the converging fields of film, art and creative technology.”

Full programme listings and free bookings can be found at fact.co.uk/birthday

Dick Whittington features the same creative team as last year’s critically acclaimed, sold-out production of Jack and The Beanstalk at The Hope Street Theatre in 2022 and will, once again feature a company who are all local to the Merseyside region.

Producer Christopher Jones of Just Entertainment says “Following the huge success of Jack and the Beanstalk last year, we wanted to make sure this year’s production is even bolder. I think we have done that; the principal cast has grown in size and the show’s ambition is getting bigger by the day, we are thrilled that the same creative team are on board to bring this adventurous pantomime to life”

Dick Whittington will be headlined by Liverpool Live’s Lesley Butler who will be playing the evil Queen Rat and John Garfield-Roberts who brought the house down last year will once again be donning the frock to titillate us as the larger-than-life Sarah the Cook.  Liverpudlian Michael Irvine-Hall probably best known to many as one of the faces of the hit Bongo’s Bingo will play the titular Dick Whittington, while Phil Perez – the UK’s face of the family board game Pop-Up Pirate makes a welcome return as Captain Fitzwarren and his band of long-lost relatives.  St Helen’s based Kieran Maleedy will bring the slapstick as the silly Idle Jack and LIPA Graduate Faye Griffiths will be loud and proud as the Fairy Cross the Mersey. Roxanne Male will make her Just Entertainment debut as the evil sidekick Ratasha. Joining the principal cast following several pantomimes as adult Ensemble Sarah Collinge will be playing the leading lady Alice Fitzwarren and Freya Barnes will be playing the lovable Tilly the Cat.

Local performers Lucy McManus (LMA), Harley Boote (Liverpool Theatre School) Eloisa Goodall  (Ballet Theatre UK) will appear as our adult ensemble and will join alongside a gigantic junior ensemble from Hope Street based Performers Theatre School.

Dick Whittington is written by Christopher Jones and will have direction by John Garfield-Roberts, musical direction by Andy Mudd, choreography by Jenna Bradshaw, set design by John Garfield-Roberts and Abbie Jones and Lighting Design by Joe Sanderson. The pantomime will be produced by Christopher Jones and Sheryl Dean for Just Entertainment Limited.

Booking: www.hopestreettheatre.com or via Ticket Quarter on 0344 561 0622 

Details of the full Liverpool Irish Festival 2023 programme are now live!

The Festival showcases 10 days of outstanding Irish arts and culture, celebrating the connections between Liverpool and Ireland.

In 2023, the festival is centred on the theme of anniversary. It includes their usual Launch and Cultural Connectedness Day (Thurs 19 Oct), Family Day (Sat 21 Oct), a writing day (Sun 22 Oct) and a Samhain Céilí (Sun 29 Oct), as well as walking tours, talks, performances and gigs.

Browse all the events here

The festival is held 19 – 29 October, various Liverpool venues.

This autumn, from 7 October 2023 – 30 March 2024, visitors to the University of Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum can explore the vibrant work of Liverpool-based artist and intellectual, Fanchon Fröhlich (1927 – 2016) alongside British abstract artists of the 20^th century.

Abstract Thinking: Fanchon Fröhlich & Her Contemporaries is a free exhibition featuring 11 of her paintings and prints showing her strongly gestural and spontaneous abstract expressionist style. Presented alongside her work will be paintings by eight other abstract artists from the University’s collection, many of whom Fröhlich worked alongside during her career.

Through viewing the work of Fröhlich alongside important artists such as Gillian Ayres (1930 – 2018), Sandra Blow (1925–2006), Peter Lanyon (1918–1964), William Hayter (1901 – 1988), plus other leading artists who worked in the city during from the 1950s onwards, visitors can explore the mutual flow of ideas and influences.

In the 1960s Fanchon Frölich enjoyed professional success; she exhibited alongside artists such as Joan Miró, her work entered prestigious collections including the Walker Art Gallery’s, and her academic theories were published by the avant-garde publication, Situationist International. But from the 1980s onwards, Fröhlich’s work began to be overlooked. This exhibition seeks to re-establish her position in the artworld by showing her work alongside that of her contemporaries.

Nicola Euston, Head of Museums and Galleries at the University of Liverpool, said: “We are delighted to showcase the work of Fanchon Fröhlich in this unique way. This is the first time her work has been seen alongside these major paintings from our own collection by a range of her contemporaries. Fröhlich’s work did not get the recognition it deserved during her lifetime and we hope this exhibition offers more context to her achievements and artistic practice.

“We are especially grateful to the British Art and Design Association (BADA) for lending Fröhlich’s artworks, and without which this exhibition wouldn’t be possible. I’d like to express a special thanks to Terry Duffy, Chair of BADA, for his help and collaboration in preparing this exhibition with the assistance of BADA’s Emma Embery.”

 Fanchon Fröhlich & Liverpool

Born Audrey Fanchon Aungst in Iowa, USA in 1927, she studied the Philosophy of Science at the University of Chicago during the mid-1940s. While visiting Liverpool in 1949 she met the eminent physicist Herbert Fröhlich who had just taken up a senior position at the University of Liverpool. They married the following year. Fröhlich studied for a degree in Linguistic Philosophy at the University of Oxford then, in a major career change, undertook a post-graduate qualification at Liverpool College of Art in the mid-1950s. Her teachers there included George Mayer-Marton (1897 – 1960), Arthur Ballard (1915 – 1994) and Austin Davies (1926 -2012) who are also represented in the exhibition.

Fanchon Fröhlich’s artistic caree

During the late 1950s Fröhlich worked in St Ives alongside Peter Lanyon and then in Paris with print-maker William Hayter among many others. In Liverpool in the late 1980s Fröhlich embarked on communally produced artworks she called Collective Phenomena, where multiple artists worked on a single painting in a session accompanied by composer Lawrence Ball on keyboards. Her friendship with Liverpool-based artist Terry Duffy was also a source of artistic inspiration. A major work of his, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, exhibited in the 1991 John Moores Painting Prize, is displayed in the exhibition.

By her death, Fröhlich’s house in Liverpool was filled with paintings, prints and associated personal archives. The collection is now managed by the British Art and Design Association (BADA) and can be seen online at www.badaart.org/fanchon-frohlich/

This exhibition is a counterpoint to the solo show of Fröhlich’s work, The Wrong Sex, held at Liverpool John Moores University’s Exhibition Research Lab in Spring 2023.

They’re getting very excited at Homotopia HQ, as they fast approach this year’s festival.

They’ll be bringing an amazing mix of events to our great city and can’t wait to welcome you through the various queer doors they’re taking over. From wrestling, yes you read that right, to quiet contemplation and a party in a dark tunnel…

Take a look at this year’s programme and get booking those tickets! Look out on socials for the latest news and keep an eye out for their brochure which will be hitting the streets early October.

They can’t wait to see you in November!

Have a nosey at the full line-up here. 

They’ll be running special Student Days promotion soon at Cass Art Liverpool and online. They’ve got some great deals available for students.

This time the fantastic offers are also available to Viridian Card holders – our discount card for Art Educators. You can find out more about the Viridian Card here.

Don’t miss @cassart1984 Student Days in-store & online! Students get 20% off everything and free art goodies worth £70 from Weds 27^th to Fri 29^th September in selected stores & online!

Plus there are live demos in-store, giveaways & more. T&Cs apply*

Find out more: www.cassart.co.uk/student-day

Blue Room, Bluecoat’s inclusive arts project for learning disabled and neurodivergent artists, will launch an exciting artistic collaboration with international cosmetics retailer Lush on Thursday 21st September.

The group of artists have designed a new Knot Wrap which will be sold in all Lush shops globally and online, featuring a festive design. A Knot Wrap is an ornately decorated fabric that replaces the need for disposable wrapping paper or even a carrier bag. Titled “Party Animals”, the Blue Room design for Lush includes birds from the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, memories of the group’s Christmas party karaoke, and a series of animals in winter costumes. The whole scene is set beneath a sky of Northern Lights, inspired by the patterns that Lush’s famous bath bombs leave in water.

The project began last year when Blue Room were approached by Emma Caswell from Lush’s gift design team in December 2022, and were asked to share images of their artists’ work from the archive. Emma invited the artists to respond to a festive brief and the group began the process of developing a collaborative design.

Blue Room first carried out a series of research visits to Lush Liverpool, where they experimented with making bath bombs and explored the project collections. Back in the Blue Room studio the group developed their own designs inspired by their visits to Lush. They used powdered inks to create colourful skies influenced by their experiments with bath bombs, drew an eclectic cast of animal characters using pencils, posca pens and paints, and collaged visuals of the “Party Animals”.

Becky Waite, Blue Room Project Manager, says “We’ve always supported Blue Room artists to connect and collaborate with contemporary artists to make and share work. Working with a retail partner on a design brief was a new experience for us all and the team at Lush were so supportive. They appreciated all of the rich details and imaginative stories interwoven into the design.

“Receiving the news that after all of the hard work of the artists and the staff team, the Party Animals design had been selected to be sold in stores all around the world was a milestone moment and up there as one of the proudest achievements in the project’s 15 year history.”

Rhoda Lloyd, Lush Gifts Project Manager, says “This festive season we have collaborated with six artist groups and we’re super excited that this year we’re working with Blue Room. We love working with a wide range of designers as it enables us to keep our ranges fresh and it’s an opportunity to highlight the work and celebrate artists from many different backgrounds. We believe all artists, regardless of background should have the same opportunities to showcase their work.”

The Party Animals Knot Wrap will be for sale as a limited edition in Lush stores and online from Thursday 21st September.

To mark the collaboration Blue Room will plan and host a celebratory event on Sunday 19 November in Lush’s largest store in Liverpool. This public event is free to attend and the event details are as follows:

Blue Room X LUSH Liverpool 

Party Animals: A Top Floor Takeover 

LUSH Liverpool, 38 – 46 Church St, Liverpool, L1 3AW

Sunday 19 November

11am – 4pm

Free, donations welcome

Drop-in

The top floor of the LUSH Liverpool store will be transformed into a winter wonderland as the artists bring elements of the Party Animals design to life with artworks and interactive installations.

Visitors can step inside Party Animals, Blue Room’s imagined ‘menagerie at the North Pole’ to find tigers in pixie boots, penguins on bicycles and a partridge in a pear tree.

There will be a rare chance to meet the artists behind the design, and printmaking activities in a drop-in creative workshop. Visitors will also have the opportunity to find the perfect ethical festive gift with a pop-up Blue Room print shop selling a brand new collection of limited edition art prints created by Blue Room artists in the Bluecoat Print Studio.

All proceeds support the Bluecoat charity and directly contribute to supporting learning disabled and neurodivergent artists to develop creative and social skills and share their work with audiences.

A new, gripping conspiracy thriller from The Book Guild Ltd, The Organisation by Martin M. McShane.

Martin grew up in Liverpool, often playing in the old docks area as a child, and has entrenched parts of the plot of his book in Liverpool and the surrounding areas (including a scene that unfolds at a military camp between Liverpool and Southport called Altcar, scenes in Huyton, and a nod to Penrhyn Street School which Martin previously attended).

Set between the 1930s and the 1970s, The Organisation follows a young woman recruited into a secretive society, and her dramatic rise and fall within the organisation.

About The Organisation

Following the tragic deaths of both her parents, baby Alice is adopted by childless relatives. They rename her and in doing so erase her past. Margaret, as she is known, is brought up in a world of luxury, but always senses that something isn’t quite right. In her teens, she comes to the attention of the enigmatic Max, a recruiter for the Organisation – a secretive society whose origins stretch back almost a thousand years. Originally created to destroy the aristocracy, some say that it has become just another criminal enterprise…

Is the Organisation a force for good or evil? That depends on your perspective. Are those who want to destroy it forces for good or evil? That, too, depends on your perspective. Throughout its time, the Organisation has defeated many adversaries, but in the twentieth century it faces the biggest challenge to its survival.

After spending a number of years working in New Zealand and Australia, Martin M. McShane returned to the UK and now lives in North London. While in Australia, Martin was seconded to the Royal Australian Navy where he ran security and communications for warships anchored in Sydney Harbour. Martin now works as the Global Programme Director for a major IT company specialising in implementing web-based stock exchange systems around the globe.

Martin says, “I’m especially fond of conspiracies relating to those secret organisations that are really running things in the background, New World Order type conspiracies, if you will, they get my imagination going most and are the basis for my book, The Organisation; the oldest, the most ruthless and the most secret of all secret Organisations. What would an Organisation look like that could run everything in the background without ordinary people like us ever knowing about it?

“For a start, it would have to be massive, which at one point two million disciples worldwide, The Organisation is; it would have to be embedded throughout every aspect of life and society, which, through the depth and reach of its recruitment programme, The Organisation is and it would have to have ‘something’ on people in order to keep them under its control, which The Organisation has, be it greed or just good old fashioned blackmail. Could such an Organisation exist? According to some conspiracy theories it already does. Some events in the book are taken from my own life experiences and it is with total confidence I can say that it can only be dark forces operating in secret in the background that have, thus far, kept me from achieving my full potential. Hopefully The Organisation will change all that.”

Published by The Book Guild Ltd

RELEASE DATE:  28/09/2023      ISBN: 9781915853141     Price: £9.99