Interest area: art

The Refractive Pool project, which started in 2019, has explored contemporary painting in the city through events, a book and online resources, highlighting the diverse range of artists and painting styles, and culminates in this exhibition.

Liverpool-based artists Josie Jenkins and Brendan Lyons have selected and curated the exhibition, which will feature 20 local artists to give an overview of the community of painters based in the city.

The Refractive Pool book will feature 40 Liverpool-based artists who work with paint and will include exclusive new poetry by Paul Farley.

Bringing art back into Dr Martin Luther King Jr Building (MLK), National Museums Liverpool is delighted to announce Migrant Artists Mutual Aid (MaMa) as the creatives for the first in a series of pop-up exhibitions planned for the much-loved venue.

Running from 4 March to 5 June 2022, this exhibition will drive a series of thrilling and captivating pop-up displays that will run throughout 2022 / 2023.

Founded in 2011, MaMa is a cross-national network of women, mothers, migrants, artists, academics, and activists who work together to support members who are seeking sanctuary, and campaign for justice in the migration system.

Their pop-up exhibition will be a visually strong and immersive experience, as well as a platform for engagement discussion and debate, MaMa plan to include music, performance poetry and workshops. The participation of communities in the development will focus on the long and deep relationships that MaMa has as a community of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers with groups across the city.

MaMa will work with National Museums Liverpool as well as with vulnerable and marginalised participants in Liverpool, developing their artistic response to Liverpool and its role in historic slavery through an immersive soundscape of music and spoken word augmented by visual elements taken from the Slavery Museum’s rich archival material and newly created artistic works.

A group of young women from St Helens will open a brand new art exhibition on 10 December in the old Tyrers Building (and second space for MD Creatives for use by community groups and multi-agency collaborations) exploring young people’s experiences.

Produced by St Helens arts organisation Heart of Glass, the exhibition entitled I AM ME will be a chance for audiences to see new artworks including film, photography, poetry and sculpture made by the young women alongside other artworks they have curated.

In the new year, the show will tour schools/colleges and other venues across  the city region.   The group, aged 15-25, -have been working with professional artist  Sophie Mahon over the last year. Together with Sophie, they have been developing their experience in different art forms including film,  photography, poetry, sculpture and installation, exploring issues that are important to them and supporting one another to develop their  creativity and skills as well as learn more about co-curating an exhibition.

Alongside their own sculptures, drawings and poems, the group have also selected a number of artworks created by artists and young people in St Helens that resonated with them and the themes explored in the exhibition:

Artworks on display include:

Running on Fumes

A film by Caroline Smith in collaboration with ten young people exploring their experiences of St Helens High Street, the impact of Covid-19, and their hopes for the future. Commissioned by Historic England as part of Future of the High Street; a series of ten new short films organised by a range of UK arts organisations and created by contemporary filmmakers in collaboration with young creatives. (https://www.heartofglass.org.uk/projects-and-events/projects/running-on-fumes)

Queer Treatment

A animated short film by Amy Pennington exploring connection, identity, representation and celebrating queer icons past and present. (https://www.heartofglass.org.uk/project-and-events/events/queer-treatment-a-new-animated-film-by-artist-amy-pennington)

PARRTY

A new Zine* for young women, by young women celebrating their voices, views and interests. PARRTY is a project by Kate Hodgson in collaboration with girls and young women living in and around Parr St Helens. (*DIY – Do It Yourself / Self published magazine) (https://www.heartofglass.org.uk/projects-and-events/projects/parrty)

Level the Playing Field

A new sculptural work created by Sophie Mahon exploring and incorporating the responses of 6000 school children in St Helens collected as part of #DearStHelens, which asked the children of our town ‘what does a child-friendly borough look like and feel like to live in? The sculpture represents children and young people’s collective concerns and hopes for the future, with imagery and text taken directly from their responses.

FREE Drop In Sessions

– Sat 11th Dec – MD Creatives will be performing a pop up dance routine  in the space at 11am & 3pm
– Sun 12th Dec – Kate Hodgson will be hosting a free drop in ‘Make your own zine’ workshop between 12pm – 4pm  (all materials will be provided)

The exhibition will run from 10 – 15 December, at the old Tyrers Building, Bridge Street, St Helens, 10am – 4pm, entry is FREE.

The project is part of the local arts organisation Heart of Glass’s Young Hearts programme which is about creating a safe and welcoming space  for young women to learn together, share their stories, and to develop their creativity.

In addition to the creation and curation of artworks, the young women have had the opportunity to visit art galleries and exhibitions in Leeds and  London including The Tetley, Tate Modern and Wellcome Collection where they have learned more about the process of making, curating and  developing art.

This project has been commissioned by the local arts organisation Heart of Glass with support by Paul Hamlyn Foundation and is part of the  Young Hearts Programme exploring young women’s voices and experiences living and growing up in St Helens.

Heart of Glass Producer Kate Houlton said:

“In a world still dominated by male artists, it’s been so exciting to see this amazing group of young women come together, support one other  and launch this amazing exhibition in an incredible town centre space. At Heart of Glass we believe that arts belongs everywhere, to everyone  and we are so excited that this project will go on to tour to schools, colleges and venues across the Liverpool City Region so that we can shine  a light on the experiences of this group of young women and open up a dialogue about the issues and themes they’ve explored.”

Artist Sophie Mahon said:

“It has been a genuine pleasure to work with such an inspiring group of women to explore issues that affect us all and to provide a platform for  young people’s voices to be heard. This exhibition showcases some of the ideas, concerns and hopes that have come through conversations  and creations with the young women’s group and from young people across St Helens.”

Participant, Sandy-Rose, age 23, said: “Ive been able to explore skills I never knew I had and unlocked a lot of creativity. I’ve really enjoyed being part of a group that totally understand and support each other. “

The bi-annual exhibition of inspiring artworks by young people from Wirral secondary schools.

Aiming to celebrate, nurture and encourage the artistic talents of local students and engagement with arts and culture outside of the classroom, Fresh Perspectives is always a local highlight.

This will be the fifth time the exhibition has taken place.

A new documentary display at the Bluecoat looks at how the Liverpool arts venue has engaged with the city and participated in wider public debates.

In these challenging times, the function of the arts in society is becoming increasingly valued, as well as put under scrutiny. Publicly-funded arts organisations are being challenged to develop new ways to engage with their audiences, to become more relevant to local communities, and to grow their civic role.

As the first arts centre in the UK, constituted in 1927, the Bluecoat has long engaged with Liverpool’s cultural and civic life, providing a home for artists, cultural societies, creative retailers, festivals, and a place for public discourse and social interaction.

The new exhibition, A Civic Role, reflects some of the ways in which the Bluecoat has strived to be more than simply a venue that presents art in its spaces. The material selected to tell this story is drawn from the arts centre’s archive – photos, film, posters, publications and other documents – and offers a glimpse at some of the key strands of the Bluecoat’s civic engagement.

This has taken place both within and beyond the building, interacting with local people in a variety of ways, such as artists’ interventions into the public realm, residencies by artists and academics, leading on debates, and a wide-ranging participation programme with communities.

A range of topics is covered in the exhibition around four themes:

Bluecoat’s contribution to public debate, starting with the study it commissioned from John Willett in the early 1960s, which was published in 1967 as Art in A City, a seminal work that was the first sociological study of art in a single place. While the building was closed for its capital development in 2007, the Bluecoat went on the road to local neighbourhoods to promote the Liverpool Debates, inviting local people to discuss hot topics of the day. And in 2011 it devised a programme, Liverpool, City of Radicals that interrogated the city’s radical credentials.

Bluecoat engaging with the city, through artists’ interventions in the public realm, taking art out into the city in performances and installations in busy city shopping streets or on public monuments. Projects like Peter McRae’ Avenue of Heroes on the steps of St George’s Hall, Mandy Romero’s Queen of Culture during the construction upheaval of Liverpool One, or Richard Dedomenici impersonating Boris Johnson apologising to Liverpool, are represented in photos. While, at the arts centre, Bed-In at the Bluecoat recreated John & Yoko’s famous action for peace, restaged as a series of daily interventions by local people using a bed in the Bluecoat space.

The inclusive city focuses on the Bluecoat’s participation programmes with local communities, both onsite and as outreach, such as artist Humberto Velez’ The Welcoming, staged for the 2006 Liverpool Biennial and involving new migrants to the city welcomed by older established communities; and the Art Valley project with people in Alt Valley.

Global conversations are reflected in the Bluecoat’s engagement with the world through posters for exhibitions by artists from Senegal, China, France, Germany and elsewhere, including an exchange programme with Liverpool’s long-established twin city of Cologne, and the first UK visit by Pop Mechanica from Leningrad’s music and performance underground in a season in 1989 called Perestroika in the Avant Garde.

Though only a snapshot of these cultural programmes, the display indicates how they have aimed to draw attention to issues such as local democracy, housing, public space, the accessible city, sharing knowledge, pathways to creativity, contested histories, and global links.

This is the second in a series of archival displays in the Vide space, situated next to the Gallery, and it follows A Creative Community, which focussed on the Bluecoat as a centre for working artists. The third exhibition, starting in March 2022, focuses on Bluecoat’s colonial legacies.

Bluecoat’s civic role will be further discussed in an associated programme, see www.thebluecoat.org.uk where they invite you to contribute your ideas for a more civic role for the arts centre.