Join our free activities where you can experiment with simple texture rubbing techniques to discover the unique patterns and surfaces of tree bark, leaves and other natural materials. Use your artworks to create your own woodland scenes. From busy insects and birds to leafy canopies and forest floors, we encourage you to celebrate the life that thrives in woodland environments.
Be inspired by artworks in Tate’s collection that explore habitats, green spaces and natural forms. Check out Ai Weiwei’s Tree, Max Ernst’s Forest and Dove, Zoe Leonard’s Tree Fence, 6th St. (Close-up), Menashe Kadishman’s [title not known] and Tacita Dean’s Majesty 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!
Marking Turner Prize-winning architecture collective Assemble’s new publication Building Collective, Alice Edgerly from Assemble will be in conversation with Hazel Tilley and Eleanor Lee from Granby Four Streets.
Assemble have transformed the definition of a successful young architecture practice by working on temporary, small-scale, community-based projects, often reusing sites and materials. Their projects range as widely as a brewery in rural Japan and a train depot in Arles, France. In 2015 they won the Turner Prize for their work with Granby Four Streets in Toxteth, Liverpool. For this project they worked closely with local residents to renovate derelict housing in the area.
Biographies
Assemble
Assemble are a London-based collective who work across the fields of art, design and architecture to create projects in tandem with the communities who use and inhabit them. Their architectural spaces and environments promote direct action and embrace a DIY sensibility.
Granby Four Streets
Granby Four Streets is an ongoing community-led project that aims to rebuild Granby in Toxteth. Once a lively and diverse community in Liverpool, the neighbourhood was nearly made derelict and fell into a state of disrepair. Starting from 2011, regeneration schemes brought these streets out of dereliction and back into use.
ABCL1 24 Newington, L1 4ED
6pm Thursday 2nd – 6pm Sunday 5th Oct 2025: 72 hour Interactive Collage Experience & art exhibition
8pm – Late Saturday 4th Oct 2025: ABCL1 closing event with; Art, music, video art & performance. Headline DJ @11pm. Nibbles & mxers provided BYOB
Since Covid ABCL1 has operated more as a private members club than a public gallery space. As our members moved on to bigger and better things we are putting on one last extravaganza over the first weekend in October. Artist Matt Kilp will be finishing his site specific collage installation & exhibiting some of his other work alongside the work of previous ABC members and other local artists. This show will run for 72h only & will be open to all souls around the clock, so you can come whenever suits you. On the final evening (Sat 4th) there will be an open bar with mixers and nibbles (byob) live music, performance and video art. If you would prefer a more relaxed experience feel free to come at any other time. We are operating an open door policy. Just come inside and up the stairs.
Contact: Matt Kilp jesuisgino@gmail.com for additional information
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.
Made on Merseyside 2, aims to celebrate the cultural/creative industries in our area. There will be a focus on film, TV, music and writing.
At the heart of the exhibition are objects and photos, films and documents which shine light on the many fascinating stories which have shaped our local cultural landscape.
Highlights will include an inspirational documentary on the making of the cult film classic, Letter to Brezhnev, as screenwriter Frank Clarke is from Kirkby and many of the film locations are local to Knowsley/Liverpool.
Kitty and Her Accordion is a poignant short documentary that delves into the life of Kitty, a working-class Mum in 1950s Liverpool, who was constrained by societal expectations that stifled her dreams of becoming a musician.
A celebration of the 1960s TV series Z Cars, the first series of which was filmed in and around Kirkby, and an exploration of the work of local author of stage and screen Alan Bleasdale will form part of the exhibition, along with a look at The End, a unique magazine created in 1981 in Stockbridge Village (then Cantril Farm) by founding editors Phil Jones and Peter Hooton and focusing on local life, music, football and fashion.
Also featured, will be Amazon Studios and their independent record label ‘Inevitable’. Beginning life as Liverpool Sound Enterprises in the 1970s, Amazon Studios became a central site for the local post-punk music scene, responsible for early recordings by many local bands such as Echo and the Bunnymen, Dead or Alive, Wah! and China Crisis; they also recorded the original film score to the Letter to Brezhnev film, amongst many others.
Accompanying the exhibition will be a range of talks, events and workshops.
An opportunity for all young people and adults over 16 to escape the hectic nature of daily life and enjoy the focus that detailed observational drawing can offer.
These creative sessions are guided by local artist Laura Kate. A selection of materials will be provided and participants can choose to create their own piece to take home or simply enjoy trying out different techniques.
This is not about artistic skill, but about the mindful benefits of deep concentration. We particularly welcome anyone who is brand new to the world of sketching and has always seen themselves as ‘hopeless at art’!
Sessions from early morning to twilight will offer different sensory opportunities, ranging from quiet sessions to sessions accompanied by live music, with the repertoire will be selected to reflect the time of day and techniques used. During the afternoon and evening sessions there will be a live performance by harpist Elinor Nicholson.
Participants are encouraged to visit the the free exhibition Dawn to Dusk: Birds by Jim Moir and the day is inspired by Jim’s deep understanding of the natural world through intense observation.
Image Credit: Pete Carr
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.
