Interest area: art

Life Line: Photographs By Jonathan Coo...

Life Line exhibits two photography series set along the West Kirby waterfront.

Employing magical realism and unique printing techniques, Cooper’s photographs place their inhabitants in a dreamlike world.

Saturday 7th October, 12-1pm: artist talk by Jonathan Cooper. Free, but places limited – book on Tickets Wirral

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Jonathan Cooper studied Photography at Withens Lane College in Wallasey, where his tutor included the renowned street photographer Tom Wood. Having previously worked in London and Australia Cooper is now based in Wirral.

Into the Light: An intervention by Nah...

Into the Light will see six of Nahem Shoa’s paintings displayed beside famous artworks from the Walker’s permanent collections – including artists such as Joseph Wright of Derby, David Hockney, Lucien Freud and James Tissot.

Shoa’s intervention also celebrates the Walker Art Gallery’s newest acquisition by the artist, The back of Gbenga Ilumoka’s Head. This ground-breaking and provocative painting is part of Shoa’s pioneering body of work around themes of race, identity, diversity and the human condition.

Born in London in 1968, Nahem Shoa’s Eritean, Yemeni, Iraqi, Latvian and Scottish heritage plays a vital part in his work. His work champions the people and communities that have been made to feel invisible or othered throughout British history.

Traditional Wax Carving – Jewell...

Learn the basics of traditional wax carving and create a hand-made ring or pendant for yourself or a loved one. This is a slow and mindful process, after the workshop your piece will be cast in 100% recycled sterling silver and hand-finished.

This workshop is led by founder of Dripped goods, Amy Flynn. Amy has a BA in Jewellery Design from London College of Fashion and has over 10 years experience in the jewellery field. She designed the medals for the World Gymnastic Championships in 2022, has showcased in the Bluecoat Display Centre and has led multiple workshops at venues including TATE Liverpool.

Event

£95 pp includes all materials and your item cast in 100% recycled sterling silver.

RELICS Demo & Drop In Workshop

Create a unique pendant or ring featuring impressions of the Liverpool city/Albert Dock area. Explore taking impressions in soft wax, capturing personal memories of place. After this self-led workshop your pendant or ring will be cast in 100% recycled sterling silver.

As part of the Good Market XL at Liverpool’s exhibition centre on October 28th, Amy, founder of Dripped Goods will be demonstrating her signature technique of taking impressions in soft wax at her stand. The Demos will take place throughout the day, with the option to try it out for yourself and create a unique ring or pendant.

This workshop is led by founder of Dripped goods, Amy Flynn. Amy has a BA in Jewellery Design from London College of Fashion and has over 10 years experience in the jewellery field. She designed the medals for the World Gymnastic Championships in 2022, has showcased in the Bluecoat Display Centre and led multiple workshops at venues including TATE Liverpool.

Event

Demo is free to watch a deposit of £15 secures a space to create your own jewellery item at a total cost of £95 in recycled sterling silver.

Reclaimed Charm Necklace Workshop

Make a custom multi-charm necklace from pre-loved jewellery elements and found objects. They will Curate and attach a selection of treasures, including charms, beads, shells & gemstones to a recycled sterling silver chain.

Event

This workshop is led by founder of Dripped goods, Amy Flynn. Amy has a BA in Jewellery Design from London College of Fashion and has over 10 years experience in the jewellery field. She designed the medals for the World Gymnastic Championships in 2022, has showcased in the Bluecoat Display Centre and led multiple workshops at venues including TATE Liverpool.

A Place of Our Own

A Place of Our Own is a group exhibition that brings together the local stories of people across Walton (North Liverpool), Prescot (Knowsley) and Chester town centre.

What connects these three projects is a pride in people’s memories and associations with each place, but also an acknowledgement of redevelopment and regeneration needed within each area. Like many urban areas across the country, and particularly across the North West, there lies a fine balance in celebrating local heritage and culture while making room for the new. And who else is best placed to discuss this issue other than those that live and work on those streets?

Launch event: 28 September, 17.30, with drinks and music from Dance for Plants

Projects include:

A Portrait of the High Street. Photographic artist Tony Mallon has been working in collaboration with local residents from Prescot since the summer 2021. He invited people to set up a local photography group to reimagine the high street and create a contemporary portrait of the area.

With cameras in their own hands, through Tony’s support, the local residents have become the documenters of their own community, using a combination of street photography and portrait techniques to tell their stories.

Suzanne St Clare and Chester Traders. For the past two and a half years Suzanne has been working with business owners trading on the historical Rows in Chester. Together they’ve been chatting about how these business owners came to Chester, their community, challenges, the quirkiness of independent trading and their love and passion for this beautiful, historic city.

Inspired by photographers such as Daido Moriyama, Gregory Crewdson and Julia Fullerton-Batten, the traders and Suzanne have been working together to create a series of stunning images and video works that document the daily lives, stories and individuals who make up this local high street.

Our Home. Our Place. Our Space. A project by photographer Lucy Hunter, Walton Youth and Community project and the wider community of Walton. Lucy worked for over a year in the area with residents, trying different camera techniques and exploring the area through photowalks and portraiture to share their perspectives and experiences of the local area. Photographers Sarah Weights and Tricia Grant-Hanlon also assisted with the project.

There will also be Reflections group exhibition on the Open Eye Gallery exterior wall and cafe area. Artists and photographers have been working with communities whose stories are seldom heard to capture their experiences of Covid-19.

Emerging Makers 2023

Featuring recent graduates and emerging makers working across a range of disciplines and media, Emerging Makers highlights the ‘makers to watch’ of 2023.

All work is for sale in the gallery and they now have a selection which is also available to purchase online.

The Carl Rosa Opera Company

The Carl Rosa Opera Company would be 150 years old this month. The exhibition in the Picton Room (of Liverpool Central Library and Archive) celebrates that with highlights from the archive.

The ‘Rosa’ was Britain’s longest running and most successful touring opera company, always performing opera in English. Its aim was to promote opera at affordable prices to the largest and broadest audience possible.

The Rosa owned the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool between 1884–1896, and performed in Liverpool regularly from 1873 until the 1950’s. It also performed in 58 other towns & cities…

The Rosa was closed down by The Arts Council in 1960. This exhibition marks that first performance at the Theatre Royal in Manchester of MARITANA by William Wallace, conducted by Carl Rosa.

Jenkin van Zyl and Uma Breakdown

From 20 October 2023 – 28 January 2024, FACT presents two major solo shows by artists Jenkin van Zyl and Uma Breakdown.

The artists’ works look to defy the nature of conventional heroic narratives. Through processes of retelling and reenactment they open up possibilities for centering the overlooked, the queer, and the monstrous. Their works offer glimpses into the transitory joy of building new communities, while also reflecting on the cyclical nature of time. The opening of both exhibitions marks the celebrations of FACT’s 20th anniversary.

Jenkin van Zyl unveils his most expansive and ambitious exhibition to date. Spanning FACT’s ground floor galleries, the installation extends van Zyl’s latest film work Surrender (2023), with new sculptural elements. Visitors can explore van Zyl’s large-scale immersive environments, including an energy-drink lined trophy room, and experience the film from a ballroom setting found within the domed stomach of a giant inflatable metallic rat.

Inside the ballroom, Surrender plays on an endless loop as visitors follow the experience of GRACE. After checking into the P.E.E.P love hotel, GRACE, along with other paired couples, begins to compete in a series of tournaments that play with the limitations and expansiveness of the body. Fuelled by an endless stream of energy drinks, it’s unclear whether GRACE’s drive to participate emerges from an insatiable yearning or from a desire for escapism, community, oblivion or victory.

Van Zyl’s hallucinatory film conflates this ‘rat race’ with the ‘rat king’, a lethal and rare natural phenomenon where the tails of rats become fused together. The work questions notions of individuality and collectivity, exploring how community-building can foster belonging, allyship, and resistance, despite neoliberal frameworks often inducing competition for survival. Dense with references to queer club culture, cinema, and the dance marathons of the 1930’s Great Depression, Surrender draws viewers into an unstable world where suffering and defiance become spectacles for entertainment.

Uma Breakdown‘s solo exhibition comprises of a multimedia installation at FACT and a playable video game online. Earth A.D. 2 (2023) transforms the gallery into a video game ‘save room’ whilst online artwork Low Estate (2023) invites players to navigate as the last survivor of a world-changing event.

Inside the gallery, visitors encounter collections of sculptures carefully piled with objects that resemble maps, and projected fragments of video games that drift across the space. Breakdown’s multimedia installation plays with the motifs and history of Gothic narratives. Through its explorations of intense emotions and extreme experiences from fear, horror, and violence, to passion, love, and tenderness, this genre offers new understandings of care and intimacy.

Alongside the installation, Breakdown introduces online adventure game, Low Estate (2023). In this game, players must go in search of the Dreadnought, a cyborg from the Warhammer game universe capable of sustaining a pilot housed within. The aim is to locate the entombed oracle and update their database, ensuring that their wisdom is preserved with new knowledge to inform and educate future generations.

Breakdown links these concepts to the important idea of mutual support within the trans* community. They term this concept “radical solidarity,” an act of caring for others without needing to know who they are. While elements of our histories can fade away, the exhibition emphasises that collective respect and care ensure that generational knowledge and histories will endure. Co-produced by FACT (Liverpool, UK), Wysing Arts Centre (Cambridge, UK) and QUAD (Derby, UK), Breakdown’s body of work will continue to evolve as its tour continues into 2024.

Both exhibitions will be accompanied by a programme of free events including tours, workshops, film screenings selected by the artists, and a night of live durational performances by the cast and crew of van Zyl’s Surrender. Breakdown is joined by Joseph Buckley, Dr Karen Di Franco and Dr Alice Rekab for an online talk to discuss the concept of ‘relics’, while van Zyl has created a new short film that expands on this psychotropic world which will be available to watch in a limousine at the opening party on Saturday 21 October 2023.

Kirushan Sivagnanam: Nightmares

Kirushan’s process begins with the questions “who am I?” and “am I changing my identity or are my surroundings changing it?”.

His work is a search for identity within changing physical, psychological and ideological landscapes. He also focuses on compassion, and how important this quality has been to him since his arrival in the UK.

“Nightmares” will run in Gallery 6 from 16th September – 14th October. Free entry – check our Visit Us page for full visiting information.

Events:

Friday 15th September: Artist’s performance. To celebrate the opening of the exhibition, Kirushan will be staging a performance in the gallery from 6:30pm. Free entry, all welcome.

About the artist:

Artist Kirushan Sivagnanam returns to the Williamson after his 2022 performance. He was born in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. He studied art and design at the University of Jaffna and has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions in Sri Lanka, India, and London.