Event type: Exhibition

The independent strand of Liverpool Biennial launched as Tracey in 1999. Featuring artists not engaged in the main programme, it played a vital role in revealing the city through exhibitions, interventions and performances across multiple spaces and sites, reflecting the energy of the local scene.

As the Independents Biennial again invites international artists to show alongside those from the city region, this archival display is a reminder of its origins. Included are documentation, publicity material and other ephemera drawn from the Bluecoat and other archives, as well as some original artworks from the early years.

Free entry

What does community taste like? In response to The Plant That Stowed Away, Tate Liverpool’s current display, create your own tea blend that reflects the flavours, tastes and migration stories of Liverpool. Discover connections between the city and its tea trading history.

This workshop, led by Michael Zee, explores different teas, spices and flavourings in a scouse version of “yum cha”, the Cantonese morning meal with tea and dim sum. Are you a red or a blue? As you create your tea blends, you can choose either red or blue baozi (steamed dumplings) that represent the two sides of the city.

Email Emily.beswick@tate.org.uk to reserve your space. Limited spots available

Please note that this event will take place at Metal Culture, Edge Hill Station, Tunnel Road, Liverpool, L7 6ND.

Biography

Michael Zee is a cook, food photographer and writer. He grew up working in his father’s Chinese and English chippies in Liverpool. He created the Instagram page SymmetryBreakfast and recently published his second cookbook, Zao Fan: Breakfast of China.

Chris Shaw’s photographic series captures the battle between nature and the urban landscape in his hometown of Wallasey. The images show the resilience of plants as they break through tarmac and emerge from the water of the docks. Making the weed his subject, Shaw takes a traditionally unwanted and invasive species and shows the beauty in overlooked places.

Our display The Plant that Stowed Away takes its title from one of these photographs. The display looks to the series as a starting point to explore ideas of migration and the movement of people. Starting in Liverpool and its surroundings, we travel across time and geographies through works from the Tate Collection.

Join Dr Christine Eyene and Chris Shaw for an exciting discussion. They will discuss the agency of plants and the importance of maritime enterprise in Liverpool. Looking closely at Weeds of Wallasey, they will explore the importance of natural forms to the development of the city.

Biographies

Chris Shaw

Chris Shaw (born 1961) is a documentary photographer from Wallasey. He studied photography at art school then went on to document his experience working as a hotel night porter in London from 1993-2004.

His project Weeds of Wallasey began when he went to visit his ailing father. Having found his original plan of photographing his parent too emotionally difficult, Shaw instead turned the camera on the area where he grew up, searching for life and nature amongst the industrial backdrops.

Dr Christine Eyene

Dr Christine Eyene is an art historian, critic, and curator. She is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and Research Curator at Tate Liverpool. Her curatorial practice encompasses global contemporary arts, with a particular interest in African and Diaspora arts, feminism, photography, and sound art.

Since 2021, she has been developing research on the theme of ‘Botanical Histories and Colonial Legacies’, exploring the memory of the land in rural Cameroon, the movement of plants, traditional knowledge, and colonial histories. This research informed The Plant that Stowed Away at Tate Liverpool + RIBA North and the coinciding display What the Mountain Has Seen at LJMU.

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

Join us for a special day of art, music and performances with a chance to explore our display The Plant that Stowed Away. Get creative with a display-themed workshop and learn more about the movement of plants in Liverpool.

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

We Were There: How Black Culture, Resistance and Community Shaped Modern Britain by Lanre Bakare is about a Black Britain that for too long has been unknown and unexplored – the one that exists beyond London.

Lanre Bakare has a stellar reputation as a Guardian writer, covering the intersection of art, race and culture. Lanre believes that when people think about the recent history of Black Britain, they inevitably think of London. Having grown up in Bradford, Bakare wanted to write a corrective to that; this book is that corrective. He takes us on an epic journey across the UK, visiting Birmingham, Liverpool, Cardiff, Bradford, Wigan, Manchester and more.

Join us for an insightful event with Bakare and special guests, as he spotlights the extraordinary voices and stories of Black Britons and Black British culture.

We Were There: How Black Culture, Resistance and Community Shaped Modern Britain will be available to buy at this event.

Biography

Lanre Bakare was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He is a correspondent covering arts and culture for the Guardian, where his writing focuses on the intersection of art, race and culture across multiple disciplines. He was senior correspondent on the award-winning Cotton Capital project and has worked in New York and Los Angeles as part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guardian US team.

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

Tate Liverpool + RIBA North will be open late to celebrate the 13th edition of the Liverpool Biennial.

The 2025 Biennial is titled BEDROCK and is inspired by the physical and social foundations of Liverpool and the people, places and values that ground us.

Drop into our galleries to experience works from Tate’s collection including Christine Sun Kim, Sheila Hicks, Fred Wilson and Mounira Al Solh, alongside Cevdet Erek, Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic and Hadassa Ngamba, making her debut in the UK.

Firing Up Bridge Cottage presents work by ceramic artists including internationally-renowned sculptor Emma Rodgers, ‘Great Pottery Thrown Down’ finalist and emerging artist Jacob Chan, and comedy legend turned artist Johnny Vegas, alongside others.

The exhibition connects Bridge Cottage in Port Sunlight to Rodgers’ studio nearby at the historic Fire Engine Station. Many of the artworks have been specially created for the exhibition, drawing on stories from Port Sunlight’s past, as well as the village’s unique architecture and character.

Founded in 1920, the Society of Wood Engravers has long championed the continuing practice of this skilled printmaking technique by holding annual exhibitions to celebrate the vision and versatility of contemporary engravers.

The 87th Annual Exhibition presents over 120 prints selected from an open submission to display a broad diversity of style and subject-matter by both members and non-members from the UK and overseas; all brought together by their commitment to excellence in an exacting medium.

This is the first time in over 25 years that this stunning exhibition has been presented in the Northwest of England, so it is with great pleasure that Kirkby Gallery presents this annual show for the first time.

Complementing this, in The Entrance Gallery is a show of book art curated by Liverpool Book Art, Printmaking Today and SWE responding to the theme, ‘Letting in the Light’, aimed at encouraging exchange and cross-over of ideas and techniques between book artists and printmakers.

Wild landscapes filled with atmospheric light evoke changing seasons, and loose brush marks can make the viewer believe they can feel the spray of a waterfall on their face. This series of paintings by Helène Dougherty are windows of escapism – to places unlike where the artist lives. Views of the ocean and the towering waterfalls, which fascinate Helène, capture the energy of water as it moves.

These, along with the forests and skies are inspired by places in Wales, remembered and referenced from photographs, and then painted in her studio in St Helens.

The title of the exhibition, taken from TS Eliot’s poem ‘East Coker’ refers to Helène’s use of light and movement and this collection of work is part of the artist’s drive to paint more loosely and less figuratively. In order to develop as a painter she is fighting against a tendency to use tighter brush marks to paint realistically – this theme of change is also referenced in that poem:

“In order to arrive at what you are notYou must go through the way in which you are not.”

These softer, looser connections between the parts of the picture make the most of the qualities of paint and give the audience space to react emotionally to the work – placing themselves in these landscapes and allowing their memory to dance in the light.