Event type: Talk

Liverpool Architecture Festival 2026 x MCS: St Helens Guided Walking Tour

 

In collaboration with Merseyside Civic Society, experience the evolution of a town built on industry.

Begin at the Victorian St Helens Town Hall, which is celebrating 150 years old this year, then onto the historic Gamble Building which is currently being transformed and will house the library & archives, youth hub and office space before transitioning into the future at the sleek St Helens Transport Interchange.

Witness the town’s ambitious regeneration at the town centre development site, home to a new120-bed Hampton by Hilton Hotel, modern residences, vibrant retail spaces and new market hall.

Explore St Helens Minister (formerly St Helens Parish Church), the heritage of innovation at The World of Glass and the historic Cannington Shaw bottle shop. Finally, visit Glass Futures, a global hub for sustainable technology, where St Helens continues to lead the world in glass production.

Many of the features on the tour will be staying open late especially to welcome the tour group.

Guided Tour Route:

St Helens Town Hall

Gamble Building

St Helens Transport Interchange

Town Centre development site

St Helens Minster (formerly St Helens Parish Church)

The World of Glass and Cannington Shaw bottle shop

Glass Futures

Event Partner:

Merseyside Civic Society

 

 

Liverpool Architecture Festival 2026, Future Listings Symposium

 

Future Listing Symposium

Liverpool is home to world renowned architectural heritage and over 2,500 listed buildings. The city’s unique heritage is a strong attribute and a draw for inspiration and learning.

What are the listed buildings of the future?

Following the success of previous Future Listings events during LAF21, LAF22 and LAF24 the symposium will see a format of 6 new presenters each making the case for a currently unlisted building and why it will be listed in the future. The audience will then vote for the one that they think should be listed. Future Listings will encourage interaction between the local authorities, practicing architects and the public regarding one of the regions’ most sensitive challenges.We are delighted to welcome such a diverse range of panellists.

Access Information:

The venue is fully accessible. Please contact hello@laf-uk.com if you have limited mobility or if you have any accessibility concerns or queries.

Event Details:

17:30 – Attendees arrive

18:00 – Presentations start

19:00 – Presentations finish & prize giving

19:15 – Drinks reception

Location:

One Fine Day,Old Hall Street,Liverpool,L3 9BS

 

 

Liverpool Architecture Festival 2026 x MCS: Liverpool North Symposium

 

In collaboration with Merseyside Civic Society (MCS), the Liverpool North symposium aims to advocate for better-quality housing in settings that include green space and community facilities, set out MCS’s case for the restoration of terraced and Victorian housing alongside innovative new build, and explore opportunities to save the best of North Liverpool’s heritage.

The event will comprise a series of short, themed presentations followed by panel discussions with an opportunity for questions and comments from the audience.

Programme and speakers to be announced.

Event Details:

13:00 – Event Starts17:30 – Event Ends

Location:

City of Liverpool CollegeVauxhall RoadLiverpoolL3 6BN

Event Partners:

Merseyside Civic Society, Royal Town Planning Institute and Merseyside Buildings Preservation Trust

Liverpool Architecture Festival 2026 x MCS: Destination Bootle – SAFE Regeneration Talk and Tour

 

SAFE Regeneration supports communities to Build Neighbourhoods, provides Business Start-Up advice, undertakes Place Based Social Action and has developed its innovative Neighbourhood Transformation Planning Tool in partnership with Liverpool University.

Based around their Lock and Quay community pub, the event will include presentations by Brian Dawe, SAFE CEO and Dr Kerry Traynor, Chair of SAFE Trustees and Senior Lecturer in Professional and Media Writing, University of Liverpool, followed by a tour of the site and facilities. There will be an opportunity to enjoy the hospitality of the Lock and Quay PH.

Event Partners:

Merseyside Civic Society and SAFE Regeneration

Liverpool Architecture Festival 2026 x MCS: ReMAKEing Birkenhead, Meet the new movers and shakers Symposium

Birkenhead Town Centre and Woodside are undergoing significant regeneration initiatives, some led by Wirral Council, others by community-based organisations.

The event will focus on the latter with a visit to the facilities provided for artists, makers and others in MAKE’s new Argyle Street building together with presentations from the heads of two of the community-based initiatives actively involved in regeneration projects: Dean Paton from The Big Heritage CIC talking about the WW2 Museum project focused on the German submarine next to the Woodside Ferry Terminal, and Craig Pennington the founder of ‘Future Yard’ an expanding innovative music and arts venue next to the MAKE building. There will be an opportunity to visit Future Yard following the event for an informal visit and social gathering.

Event Partners:

Merseyside Civic Society and Make CIC 

 

 

Disabled-Led Creative Health OPEN SPACE EVENT

 

It’s the lack of access to authentic stories about disability coming from lived experience of the barriers that we face that marks disability in the sand as an aspect of the human condition that is persistently negated.

– Cripping Culture, Disability Arts Online

Creative Health is firmly on the agenda – for arts organisations, public health bodies, funders, researchers, and local and national government. Alongside this there is a growing emphasis on shared decision-making and co-production with people with lived experience of health inequality, in and outside the arts.

However research from Unlimited shows disabled artists are barely surviving, never mind thriving. This event will explore and celebrate disabled-led approaches to creative health which centre lived experiences of disability, D/deaf identity, and neurodivergence.

Speakers

To be announced soon.

Event Format

Open Spaces are participant-led events where the agenda and discussion are driven by those in the room.

At the beginning of the event guest speakers will introduce some key ideas, principles and practices behind the theme and offer provocations for discussion.

Together we set the agenda and you will be able to move freely between conversations.

Ticket Cost £5.00

We also have a small number of bursary places available for those with limited funds, please email admin@collective-encounters.org.uk

Access

There will be BSL interpretation at this event. If you have any other access requirements please email admin@collective-encounters.org.uk

Liverpool John Moores University, Student Life Building has step free access, accessible and gender neutral toilets, and 6 designated Blue Badge parking bay(s) within the car park.

Full accessibility info: https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/about-us/edi/accessibility-around-ljmu/student-life-building  

 

Curator’s Tour – Self-Defined. New Stories From Archives

Sunday 31 May / 1pm / Open Eye Gallery / free, drop in
Curator-led guided tour offering in-depth insight into the conceptual framework of the exhibition. The tour explores themes of archival absence, memory construction, displacement and cultural identity, while explaining how artists reinterpret private and public archives to challenge dominant narratives. Participants gain access to curatorial thinking, research methodologies and the political contexts behind the works. A rare opportunity for deeper engagement with one of the festival’s most conceptually rich exhibitions.

Self-Defined: Symposium

Thursday 28 May / 11am – 4pm / Open Eye Gallery / free, RSVP
On the occasion of the exhibition Self-Defined. New Stories from Archives, this symposium brings together artists, curators and cultural professionals from regions of Europe less represented in the UK cultural sector. Through conversations on archives, memory and representation, participants will explore how historical narratives are revisited, challenged and reimagined today.

Programme

11:00-11:50. Rethinking the Past Through Institutions.

Why does the past matter today? How can institutions engage with contested histories? Why and how do we work together to explore history and archives from different perspectives?

Participants:

Gosia McKane, Director, Liverpool European Partnership

Anna Bubnova, Senior Relationship Manager, Culture Responds, Arts British Council

Moderated by Sarah Fisher

12:00-12:50. Exhibitions as Spaces for Untold Histories.

Can exhibitions make the voices of the excluded heard? What responsibilities do curators and artists have when working with silenced or fragmented narratives?

Participants:

Krasimira Butseva, visual artist and researcher based in London, UK and Sofia, Bulgaria.

Kristine Milere, exhibition curator and researcher at the Art Museum RIGA BOURSE, the Foreign Art Department of the Latvian National Museum of Art

Moderated by Max Gorbatskyi

13:00-14:00. Lunch break

14:00-14:50. Artists, Archives and Contemporary Work.

Why are artists and curators returning to archives? How can artistic practice reactivate historical material?

Participants:

Karolina Gembara, artist and researcher, Poland

Lia Dostlieva, artist and researcher, Ukraine

Viktoria Bavykina and Max Gorbatskyi, curators of the Self-Defined exhibition at Open Eye Gallery

Moderated by Lindsay Taylor, Director of the University of Salford Art Collection

15:00-15:50. Archival Practices Across Eastern Europe.

How do archival cultures differ across Eastern Europe? What political, social and historical conditions shape approaches to memory?

Participants:

Elene Toidze, Co-founder and Director of Creative Clusters’ Alliance, Georgia.

Zula Rabikowska, artist, founder of Rethinking Eastern Europe organisation.

Andrii Usach and Аnna Yatsenko, NGO After Silence, Ukraine.

Moderated by Viktoria Bavykina

In partnership with: The Liverpool European Festival, University of Salford, National Library of Latvia, CERS – Cultural and Creative Ecosystem of Latvia as a Resource for Resilience and Sustainability.

Our Monstrous Bodies by Emma Clear (Borough Press)

Join us for a special launch event celebrating Our Monstrous Bodies, the debut novel by Emma Cleary.

Cleary’s striking first novel blends queer literary fiction with horror, exploring fractured sisterhood, the uncanniness of the female body, and the seductiveness of art. Drawing on visual art and horror cinema, it delves into themes of loneliness, motherhood, and threatened bodily autonomy, offering a haunting and thought-provoking reading experience.

Originally from Liverpool, Emma Cleary is a writer and editor now based in Vancouver. Our Monstrous Bodies (published as Afterbirth in the US and Canada) is her debut novel. She holds a PhD in Literature from Staffordshire University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and is editor-in-chief of Geist magazine.

The evening will be hosted by writer and director Julia Cranney, and will include readings, an in-conversation with the author, and an audience Q&A. The author will also sign copies of the novel, with book sales by Aldous Books.

This event will appeal to readers and thinkers interested in contemporary literature, queer writing, literary horror, visual culture, the feminine grotesque, and critical discussion.

Tickets:– General Admission: £5– Concession: £2

 

A limited number of free tickets are available for those who are unwaged or experiencing financial hardship. Please select this option if it applies to you.

Doors open at 5.30pm

Booking required

In conversation with Simona Abdallah: Finding Freedom Through Art

Savera UK, in partnership with Liverpool Arab Arts Festival welcomes internationally recognised percussionist, Simona Abdallah, to Rough Trade Liverpool for an afternoon of thought-provoking conversation intertwined with Simona’s powerful performances on the darbuka, a hand-played traditional percussion instrument.

Simona is one of the first female percussionists of Arab heritage to achieve international recognition on the darbuka – an instrument traditionally dominated by men.

Our discussion will explore the patriarchal constraints that Simona faced in embracing the darbuka, her personal story in which her family attempted to force her into an array of marriages, and how she overcame those challenges to find freedom and success through her art.

The conversation will be hosted by Sara Suliman, a UK-based Sudanese filmmaker, Chevening scholar, researcher, producer, director and a member of the LAAF board of directors. The event will feature a welcome from Savera UK CEO & Founder, Afrah Qassim, conversation, live acoustic performances and a Q&A session.

Savera UK is a Merseyside-based national charity working to end ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) and other harmful practices, including forced marriage, spiritual abuse and conversion ‘therapy’. It provides lifesaving and life-changing services for survivors and those at risk, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, or gender. It also provides help and advice for professionals, training and education and research.

Content warning – discussion of domestic and ‘honour’-based abuse, forced marriage and misogyny
 
14+ (Under 16s with Adult)