Event type: Comedy

Over the last couple of years, Liverpool Irish Festival has been working on revitalising the Liverpool Irish Famine Trail.

Today, the Liverpool Great Hunger Commemoration Committee and Liverpool Irish Centre, in partnership with the Festival, lead a Famine Memorial Service to mark 175-years since the start of the seven-years of Famine in Ireland, lasting 1847-1852. There will be speeches and readings at the memorial ground.

Everyone is welcome. However, we would note that this event will not feature any electronic audio-visual equipment. We recommend dressing for the weather and bringing seats or walking aids as required. This is a standing service of roughly 30-minutes. People may gather in advance of the service.

This event contributes to the Festival’s Family, Nook and Cranny Spaces and Heritage strands of work.

On this 2-hour walk you’ll discover Irish connections to many of the historic Hope Street and Rodney Street buildings, hearing from some of the colourful characters who populated them.

Led by historian Greg Quiery, early booking is advised to avoid disappointment.

Anyone interested in this may also like the in-person Scotland Road walk (see event listing) or the self-guided Liverpool Irish Famine Trail liverpoolirishfaminetrail.com , accompanied by the Festival’s book Liverpool Irish Famine Trail: Revive, available online at liverpoolirishfestival.com/shop.

This in an outdoor walk in October; please be weather prepared, comfortable and hydrated. We will observe Covid-19 regulations, as at the date of the walk, and ask all walkers to comply with prevailing guidance.

This event contributes to the Festival’s Family, Nook and Cranny Spaces and Heritage strands of work.

Robert Cain (1826-1907) began life in Cork and ended it in Liverpool; moving from manual labourer to wealthy establishment philanthropist.

The tour, new this year, takes you on a journey of Cain’s life, via a tour of some of his most prominent buildings, including The Philharmonic Dining Rooms and The Cains Brewery; showing the swagger of his wealth and the investment he made in the city.

This is a walking tour, guided by Trev Fleming, local actor and tour guide. Please dress according to your needs and the prevailing weather conditions. Ticket incudes 20% off food and drink at The Philharmonic Dining Rooms on day of tour and a free beverage at tour’s completion.

This event contributes to the Festival’s Family, Nook and Cranny Spaces and Heritage work programmes.

Irish and Northern artists, along with those who commission Irish work in England, come together for a series of engaging sessions, exploring and embodying ‘connectedness’.
What to expect
During the day, we will discuss our creative work; experience artist-led interactions and make connections.

This is a day for professional and creative networking; peer-to-peer conversations and activity that helps to build a better creative community, with the aim of establishing collaborations and generating partnerships for the future. This year, ‘hunger for connection’ will be used as a driver for making work happen.

Working itinerary (subject to amends)

Intros and networking
Memory with Doug Devaney
Action learning set on #CCEN collaborations
Collaborating with Irish arts practitioners who experience racism, with Lorraine Maher
Commitments to collaborations.

More about #CCEN
The Cultural Connectedness Exchange Network or #CCEN is an informal network of individuals, who have signed up to share their details with one another and act as an advocacy group for Irish creative practice. Members include the Irish Embassy, General Consul and Irish in Britain, along withseveral independent artists and creative organisations. To learn more about our work, our members and to help determine if this day would be a useful testing ground for you, please visit our #CCEN page, here.

Festival strands this event contributes to: In:Visible Women, Nook and Cranny Spaces and Heritage. ♀️ ??

Arrivals welcome from 11am onwards. Formal introductions begin at 11.30am. Day ticket includes lunch.

Tony Birtill remembered
On 21 Oct 2021, Liverpool (and Ireland) lost a great man; Tony Birtill.

A Gaeilge and walking enthusiast, Tony was a keen historian, linguist and educator. Marking a year since he passed, this lecture celebrates Tony’s life. We will also launch Tony’s library (maintained at the Centre) and share a memorial package, created by several organisations he was associated with. Enter to music from Tony’s friends, before hearing from those who knew Tony best (in a space he knew all too well), including a lecture from historian, poet and peer Greg Quiery.

Liverpool Irish Festival, Liverpool Irish Centre, Conradh na Gaeilge Learpholl (Conradh na Gaeilge Liverpool), The Institute of Irish Studies (University of Liverpool) and Oideas Gael have worked collaboratively to create a memorial package in memory of our friend, teacher and lifelong learner of the Irish Language, Tony Birtill, as well as to present this event. Details of the memorial package and library will be shared at the event, as well as in our Festival newspaper and online.

The event contributes ot the Festival’s Family and Heritage strands of work.

Over the years, Liverpool Irish Festival has amassed something of an archive of books and papers, journals and materials. Though we have not been able to share it in recent years (something to do with a global pandemic), this year sees its return to the fully accessible and friendly drop-in space at Everyman Street Café. There’ll be colouring sheets for the kids; fiction for light reads and some historic tomes for a deeper interrogation of identity. By no means a full library, this is a resource for anyone to dip in and out of, to while away a half-term afternoon or a bit of time over lunch.

Please note: the Materials Library will be installed on Mon 17 Oct 2022, so may not be available until the late afternoon.

With opening speeches from The Irish World, Festival speakers and artists, previews and a night filled with music, our launch brings Festival friends together.

The Liverpool Irish Centre, our natural home, provides a convivial space in which to toast ‘Sláinte’ (health) to all those who join us, have helped us and will be with us for Festivals ahead. Book ahead to ensure you have the best seats and you get your arrival refreshment!

Following the official opening of #LIF2022, people are welcome to join us for a night of music at the Centre, including sets from Tippin’ It Up and Gaelforce.

Strands of work this event relates to: Family and heritage.

 

 

Fion Gunn is a London-based Irish diaspora artist, who has focused on travel and belonging throughout her career.

Arrivals/Departures forms part of Gunn’s year-long residency (launched 31 March 2022) at University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies.

Having travelled to and worked in China frequently, Gunn has born witness to -and is an example of- the developing global trade of arts, culture and societies. Nevertheless, a key theme in Fion’s work is displacement; whether temporary and enriching or chronic and distressing. Perhaps, more than ever, the reality of living on the knife-edge of political and environmental catastrophe is being realised around the globe…

Gunn’s imagery incorporates the visual language of migration, conflict and generational trauma, asking “what does the experience of living mean for us as individuals and as a global society?”. As a port city, steeped in industrial history and migration, Liverpool is an ideal home for this body of work, which features ports acting as literal and metaphorical entrances and exits throughout Gunn’s portfolio.

From Cork to Shanghai, Dubai to Alexandria; Gunn explores what it means to travel, its impact on memory, its historical weight and travel’s power to heal or corrupt. Globalism -in terms of commercial trade and human experiential exchange- is central to these works.

With a portfolio spanning painting, collage, sculpture, immersive and physical installations, performance, AR trails and VR, Gunn’s practice is constantly evolving to match the ebbs and flows of her subject matter.

Gunn was born and raised in Cork; graduating from Crawford College of Art & Design before spending a post-graduate year at Ecole des Beaux-Arts Supérieure de Nancy. She has exhibited across Europe and China, securing multiple awards from Arts Council England, Arts Council Ireland and Culture Ireland.
Additional activities: Free Family Workshops
All workshops are led by local artist Pamela Sullivan, and are most suitable for children aged 4-11, but all ages and abilities are welcome. The workshops are free, no registration is required, just drop in during the times below (to the Victoria Gallery & Museum).

Saturday, 20 August 2022
Time: Drop in between 1pm and 4pm
Theme: Make your own jellyfish to take home! Link.

Saturday, 17 September 2022
Time: Drop in between 1pm and 4pm
Theme: We’re All in the Same Boat – Stories of migration.
Create your own boat and imagine the journeys you can make. Link.

Saturday, 22 October
Time: Drop in between 1pm and 4pm
Theme: What does home mean to you?
Inspired by exhibition Arrivals / Departures, explore the concept of ‘home’ and create your own ‘home’ using old maps. Link.

Saturday, 12 November
Time: Drop in between 1pm and 4pm
Theme: The Vast Seas.
Make your own sea creatures and celebrate the origin of life on this planet.

Victoria Gallery and Museum workshops may be added to across the exhibition period. Keep checking this link and looking for Arrivals/Departures to see new additions.

Festival work strands this exhibition relates to: ♀️❤️??

Image credit: Fion Gunn, Endure.

In this series of miniature works, Pamela explores the forgotten people of Ireland, recreating landscapes within Merseyside’s urban jungle.
Guerilla exhibition
Pamela has always preferred unusual venues. She has exhibited all over the northwest; in derelict buildings, empty spaces, empty shops, building sites. For #LIF2022 She has created trails of artworks in trees, under benches, on walls and all over Liverpool town centre, especially in sites close to points of interest on the Liverpool Irish Famine Trail, as well as some Festival venues. She leaves art works for people to find and take home, as well as artwork attached to buildings for people to map and record on social media. Readers will need to look out… If you find one, you should take a photo, load it to social media and tag in @LivIrishFest and hashtag #LIF2022home. As Pamela builds her trail, we will expand the online exhibition.
Questions raised
Pamela’s work focusses on ‘the Forgotten’. Keep your eyes peeled at Festival venues -and across the Liverpool Irish Famine Trail- to see if you can find any of Pamela’s work. Though diminutive in scale, the impact is monumental. Her transported spaces imply abandonment and displacement. When you see them, think about how they make you feel; how they relate to world and what you can do to protect them. You might consider the work’s isolation, vulnerability and endangered status; do these former homes remind you of people and the way they can be cast from countries by forces quite out of their control? How do you help? What is your role? Pamela’s work asks all these questions and many more besides.

Look out for some pieces by Pamela at The Williamson Art Gallery (sharing space withour Sweeney’s Unquiet Island’s exhibition), Museum of Liverpool (on our Family Day), Liverpool Irish Famine Trail sites and other festival venues. To follow Pamela, visit Facebook @pamela.sullivan.547
Online views
During the Festival, we will build a series of images up below. Keep checking back to see new houses in new locations.

 

Strands of work this exhibiton relates to: ♀️❤️??

Liverpool-based artist David Jacques’s work is often narrative driven, referencing literary genres such as speculative fiction, magical realism and weird fiction. David’s contribution to Housing is exhibited here at The Reader –where it is presented as a house within a house- along with several studies on paper. The Reader is a national charity that uses the power of literature and reading aloud to transform lives.

David’s presentation offers a surreal scenario. A dollhouse has been exposed to an eco-nightmare. Oil pipes contort underground and penetrate through the burned-out structure, piercing the roof to spout bulbous clouds of carbon. The shape of this violent intrusion is cast as almost arboreal, serving as a delirious subversion of certain fossil fuel company logos, particularly those that attempt to signify kinship with the natural world.

In accompaniment with David’s dollhouse, there are a series of studies relating to Esso Gasoline’s ‘Happy Oil Drop Kid’. This mascot was used to front their worldwide marketing campaigns during the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Diminutive in stature, the ‘Oil Drop Kid’ was realised as a mythical sprite-like character, with a permanently happy demeanour. However, the rendering of him here sees a partly resurrected, grotesque and malevolent Puck-like figure, definitively up to no good.  Ultimately, the studies operate somewhat like Medieval marginalia, in relation to the dollhouse assemblage, whereby they realise as a satirical digression of sorts.

This exhibit is the result of a recent collaborative residency with Irish artists Anne-Marie McKee (Derry, Northern Ireland) and Ciara Finnegan (Heemstede, North Holland) for the Art Arcadia space (Derry) and subsequently the 2022 Liverpool Irish Festival. The residency was constructed around Ciara’s concept of developing a ‘nodal experimental art space’, central to which is the template of an archetypal Dutch dollhouse that is shared, assembled and affected through the interventions of the participating artists.
Where it began
The Dollhouse Space is an experimental, non-profit contemporary art space, based
in North Holland and cyberspace. Designed to offer a critical platform, to artists who are also primary carers, The Dollhouse Space supports a re-examining of value in terms of both time/physical scales and virtual/physical states. It proposes a compassionate alternative to existing institutional design and artistic production.

Simultaneously a tiny physical gallery space (a mass-produced 1974 Dutch dollhouse) and a (theoretically) infinitely expandable virtual space, The Dollhouse Space tests the role of scale, value, materiality and virtual worth in the art world today. It explores the potential of other curatorial and institutional models, rethinking exhibition and artistic residency practices to provide sustainable alternatives that maximise creative potential and artistic exchange while minimising the use of finite material resources.

Sharing sympathies on residency-design and critical approaches to the architecture of ‘The Exhibition’, through Housing, Art Arcadia and The Dollhouse Space explore the idea of nodal experimental art spaces. Whilst on remote residency with Art Arcadia (Derry), the three artists worked to develop three dollhouses.
The model and the process
Built from the architectural plans of the ‘original’ dollhouse, and located in different geographical regions, these dollhouses illustrate the potential of a decentralised network that is simultaneously large, but operates at an autonomous, small-scale, intimate level.

Housing culminated in a presentation of the three dollhouses at Art Arcadia for Derry’s Culture Night (Sept annually). David’s is built of hardboard, with an animated plumbing system. Anne-Marie built a two-dimensional model, cut and stitched from woven polypropylene sacking. Lastly, Ciara’s is built of transparent plexiglass.
Learn more

You can follow the artists’ thoughts and processes during the residency
at artarcadia.org/housing
To find out more about David’s work visit: davidjacques.org
Ciara Finnegan’s Instagram is also worth looking at, for more on The Dollhouse Space, and the rich-content multimedia she has generated from it: instagram.com/thedollhousespace
For more about The Reader visit thereader.org.uk

Acknowledgements
For several years, Art Arcadia and Liverpool Irish Festival have mapped exchanges between Liverpool and Derry. This collaborative residency has been funded by Derry City and Strabane District Council, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Arts Council England. It is delivered in partnership between Art Arcadia and Liverpool Irish Festival. The work has been hosted by Art Arcadia in Derry and The Reader in Liverpool.

Strands of work this exhibition will relate to: ??

The artists have already begun work on their residencies and are working collaboratively to create a blog series, whilst developing their individual spaces. To follow their thoughts and outputs, visit this link.