Event type: Exhibition

You’ll be buzzing with excitement with our bug-themed activities in our Learning Space this October half term! From dragonflies to beetles, take inspiration from the creepy crawlies in Tate’s collection to construct multi-coloured neon replicas of your favourite bugs. Use the materials from our pick ‘n’ mix recycled craft box to make a 3D model of your bug.

Check out John Hoskin’s Black Beetle, Louise Bourgeois’ Spider, Mark Wallinger’s King Edward and the Colorado Beetle, Yinka Shonibare’s Grain Weevil and Andy Warhol’s Happy Butterfly Day for inspiration!

Our Learning Space is open every day for visiting families- a space to relax and create with art games, colouring-in, books, toys and more!

Share your experience with us on social media using @tateliverpool and #TLfamilies.

Accessibility

Tate Liverpool is temporarily located at RIBA North, Mann Island, a short distance (425m) along Liverpool’s iconic waterfront. There is step free access to the main entrance. There is a lift to the first floor gallery, or alternatively you can take the stairs.

• Toilets are located on the first floor
• The nearest Changing Places toilet is located at the Museum of Liverpool
• Ear defenders are available to borrow. Please ask a Visitor Engagement Assistant

Additional seating is also available. Please ask a member of staff if you require assistance.To help plan your visit to Tate Liverpool + RIBA North, have a look at our visual story. It includes photographs and information of what you can expect from a visit to the gallery.For more information before your visit:Email visiting.liverpool@tate.org.uk

As RIBA North’s Home Ground: The Architecture of Football display kicks off, we invite you to join Tate collection artist, Neville Gabie and Liverpool photographer Emma Case, as they discuss art, sport and the spaces we create for play.

You’ll learn about Gabie’s residency at Tate Liverpool at the turn of the millennium. and we’ll look back on his subsequent work in Liverpool and his reflections on the city today.

Gabie will discuss his ongoing archive, Grassroots and Tarmac, which explores diverse cultures by way of their shared obsession for football and reflect on his time as artist in residence at the 2012 London Olympics.

Case will discuss RED, a community archive project that she founded which shares Liverpool fan’s photos and stories. You’ll discover what’s next for The RED Caravan – the mini museum she designed to share those stories.

Away from football, explore her work across Liverpool and it’s diverse communities and learn how, through her photography, she captures a continually evolving sense of community in the city.

Biographies

Neville Gabie

Neville Gabie, is known for creating work that responds to people and places. He works across a range of media including sculpture, film and photography. Gabie was artist in residence at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the 2012 London Games. He has worked extensively with communities across Liverpool, including a residency at Tate Liverpool, 1999-2000 and the later Up In The Air project which ran over a number of years in Sheil Park. Gabie’s work is included in Tate, Arts Council Collections and The Olympic Museum.

Emma Case

Emma case is a photographer and film maker based in Liverpool. Alongside a successful commercial career, including commission from top fashion brands, Case has a deeply rooted social practice. She founded the Red Archive to share LFC fan’s photos and stories. She has worked extensively with communities across Liverpool and has been regularly exhibited at Open Eye Gallery, most recently with The Flowers Still Grow exhibition. Case regularly works with Tate Liverpool on a range of community arts-based projects.

A new photographic exhibition in Liverpool is set to tell the story of Toxteth’s Black musicians of the 1950s and 1960s, whose influence reached The Beatles and beyond.

This autumn, the University of Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum (VG&M) presents Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe. Running from 11 October 2025 to 26 April 2026, the free exhibition features portraits by Liverpool photographer Ean Flanders. Alongside striking new images of musicians from that era, Flanders also captures portraits of their descendants.

Presented in partnership with local charity Mandela8, arts development organisation Northern Roots, and the VG&M, the exhibition draws on the knowledge and memories of community figures such as singer Ramon “Sugar” Deen  and Carol Phillips – daughter of Harold “Lord Woodbine” Phillips, and elders who were active in the area during this era.

Toxteth: The Harlem of Europe celebrates Toxteth’s Black musicians from across two decades, telling the story of a generation whose talent and innovation helped shape the sound of modern British music.

Legends from Liverpool’s music scene feature, including: Chris Amoo and Dave Smith from The Real Thing, Garry Christian from The Christians, Ramon “Sugar” Deen from The Harlems, Joe Ankrah and Alan Harding from The Chants, female harmony group Distinction, and reggae artist Ramon Judah, who continues to champion Liverpool 8’s rich musical tradition today.

THE MISSION IS THE END, THE END IS ALL I WANT! reflects on the patterns and cycles that shape our experience of the world.

Different systems—whether political, digital, or architectural—determine how we perceive and interact with the world. In the gallery, sculptures appear as though smashed into each other. Artefacts with their own history and identity collide, creating new objects that offer reflections of this pressure and force. A new film work follows a cast of fantastical characters as they explore the tension between following, resisting, and choosing their own paths.

The work questions whether a utopia can ever be neutral: whose future are we imagining when we build idealised digital spaces? Drawing from video game mechanics and digital aesthetics, Bassam builds environments that feel immersive but tightly controlled—worlds we can explore, but not quite alter. Through this lens, he explores how hidden ideas and beliefs can seep into worldbuilding: from dangerous ideologies to the fake, polished lifestyles sold through social media. The installation and sculptures create a space that feels like it is shifting and collapsing around us, pulling us in.

Rather than offering answers or closure, THE MISSION IS THE END, THE END IS ALL I WANT! creates space for reflection. It asks us to look again at the world we live in, and the future we hope for. In a time marked by collapse and contradiction, the imagined world becomes a place to face hard truths and rethink what is possible – where fantasy becomes a tool for survival, not escape.

Nina Davies blends fiction and non-fiction in her work to help us see the world in new ways. For this project, she worked with Eve, Luke, and Mel, three young people from the Liverpool City Region who the Teenage and Young Adult Unit at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust. Over the past year, they have created an artwork based on their experiences of living with and beyond cancer. 

The group came together to imagine a fictional podcast and film, inspired by the complexities and confusion of going through cancer treatment. They shared stories of their experiences: one recalled returning after surgery to find someone else in their hospital bed. What once felt private and personal had suddenly become someone else’s. This constant shifting of space, ownership and privacy became the spark for a speculative story about what comes with being a patient. 

A digital twin used by architects when designing The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre to virtually replicate, record and monitor real-time data became the focus for the group’s creative sci-fi storytelling. Nina, Eve, Luke, and Mel began to wonder how future generations might reinterpret these places if only their digital twins were to survive.

This autumn, the University of Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum (VG&M) is set to illuminate with the opening of Lightbulb moments, an exhibition that explores the origins of some of Liverpool’s greatest ideas.

Opening on Thursday 11 September 2025 and running through to autumn 2027, the exciting free exhibition will be held in the Tate Hall Museum—located within the VG&M —as it reopens after 5 years closure due to roof restoration and the pandemic.

Great ideas can occur in many places—on a walk, in the shower, or even in bed —and many of them come from Liverpool. This exhibition explores the origins of some of the city’s most remarkable discoveries, innovations, and insights, and invites visitors to reflect on what makes ideas possible in the first place.

Drawing from the rich collections of the University of Liverpool and The National Archives, Lightbulb moments displays 150 objects – from archaeological finds and scientific tools to puzzles and literature. Highlights include teaching materials for Esperanto, the universal language invented by L. Zamenhof in 1887 to promote international peace; a pair of wooden globes – terrestrial (1833) and celestial (1799) – that chart explorers’ routes and mythic constellations while prompting reflection on Britain’s role in global history; and a re-creation of Bagatelle Nouvelle, an 1847 indoor game revived by local primary school children using original trade designs from The National Archives.

Researchers from across the University of Liverpool also play a key role in the exhibition, sharing their own moments of discovery. From history, music, and archaeology to chemistry and medical science, every faculty at the University brings its own lightbulb moment to the story. Highlights include Professor Andrew Weeks‘ creation of the Postpartum Haemorrhage Butterfly—first prototyped at home using a potato masher and LEGO and now a medical device that could save many lives worldwide. Also, Dr Ariel Camp’s breakthrough in biomechanics is also celebrated, which revealed how fish bend their spines and heads upward, reshaping our understanding of animal evolution and influencing robotics.

More than a traditional display, Lightbulb moments is a vibrant celebration of curiosity and creativity—inviting visitors to explore how great ideas take shape and inspiring them to discover their own.

Steve Slack, Lightbulb moments’ curator said: “Throughout history, Liverpool has been a hub of innovation, and this exhibition celebrates the city’s role in fostering great ideas. By weaving together historical and contemporary contributions from Liverpool’s thinkers, creators and visionaries, Lightbulb moments aims to inspire the next generation of innovators. The exhibition reinforces that anyone—from scientists and artists to students and museum visitors—can experience a moment of insight that changes the world.“As the Tate Hall Museum reopens its doors, Lightbulb moments invites visitors to step inside, be inspired and perhaps even experience their own flashes of brilliance. After all, there’s no better place to have a great idea than in a museum.”

Dr Matt Greenhall, Director of Libraries, Museums and Galleries, University of Liverpool, added: “The reopening of Tate Hall Museum is a momentous occasion. After five years of careful building restoration, it will be wonderful to see this historic space welcoming visitors once again. Lightbulb moments is the perfect exhibition to mark this new chapter, celebrating both the University and the city as a hub of innovation and great ideas.“The exhibition features unique objects and documents from the University’s significant heritage and cultural collections, alongside the work of our academics, students and city partners.  As we developed the exhibition, we worked closely with our local community—and we’re excited to continue welcoming them into a space designed to spark curiosity, creativity, and conversation. We look forward to Tate Hall Museum being a space where great ideas are showcased, shared, and created!”

Steve Burgess, Head of Exhibitions at The National Archives: “I’m really excited to see Lightbulb moments and delighted that it was inspired by Spirit of Invention. We’re all happy here that we had a small part to play in your opening exhibition. I’m sure it will be very popular.”

VG&M and Lightbulb moments are free to visit, with an accompanying public programme of events and activities designed to engage and inspire visitors of all ages. Visit vgm.liverpool.ac.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/lightbulb-moments

One of the UK’s most prestigious contemporary painting exhibitions returns to the Walker Art Gallery in September 2025.

Supporting artists from all over the UK – whether they’re undiscovered, emerging or established in their careers – the Prize provides a platform for artists to inspire, disrupt and challenge the British painting scene today. Showcasing the very latest in painting across the UK, the competition culminates in a major exhibition every two years in Liverpool. 

First held in 1957, the competition was named after its founding sponsor Sir John Moores. The prize is open to all artists working with paint, who are aged 18 years or over and live or are professionally based in the UK. 

Past prizewinners have included Peter Doig, Rose Wylie, David Hockney, Mary Martin and Sir Peter Blake, who became the first patron of the John Moores Painting Prize in 2011, after winning the Junior section of John Moores 3 with his painting ‘Self Portrait with Badges’ in 1961. 

The winner of the Prize is also awarded a solo exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery the following year. The 2023 Prizewinner was Graham Crowley with his painting ‘Light Industry’. His subsequent exhibition – Graham Crowley: I paint shadows – was on display at the Walker until 13 July 2025.