Light Night: Top Ten things to do this Friday
This Friday over 50 galleries, museums and venues open until late for the annual evening spectacle that is Light Night. We’ve chosen our top ten…
Favela! @ The Royal Standard Gallery & Studios, 14.00 – 20.00, free
If you haven’t been before, take the chance this Light Night to visit The Royal Standard, an internationally respected artist-led gallery and studios based on Vauxhall Road. Studios will be transformed Friday and Saturday into mini-exhibition spaces. Chat to 27 artists including the Biennial’s Australian resident James Newitt, as well as Liverpool Art prize nominees Mike Carney, Jon Barraclough and Emily Speed. Saturday offers Pecha Kucha – fast-paced, 5 minute artist talks led by the images that inspire their work – and Tell Them and They Will Come: a workshop by The Double Negative, no less, on how to use social media effectively to tell others about your work and events (laptops essential, free wifi provided). No booking required, just turn up. See site for times.
The Royal Standard, Unit 3, Vauxhall Business Ctr, 131 Vauxhall Rd, L3 6BN
Augmented Reality Dance Party @ Art House Square (FACT), 19.00 – 21.00, free
FACT’s next resident ‘Famous New Media Artist’ Jeremy Bailey takes charge of ‘an outdoor augmented reality dance party for the public to revel in and explore their latent creativity’. Expect some very strange outfits and some genuinely experimental technology, in an attempt to control the way that we move. Dance-friendly shoes recommended.
FACT, 88 Wood Street, Liverpool, L14DQ
Polaroid Pop-up Studio @ Open Eye Gallery, 17.30 – 21.00, free
The new Open Eye Gallery on the Albert Dock has proved a big hit with audiences, and a perfect place to take some vintage-style photographs. Collaborating with Impossible Project expert Tom Wright, a pop-up studio outside the gallery will be provided, taking polaroid snapshots of you and best friend/Boyfriend/Aunty to take away with you on the night.
Open Eye Gallery, 19 Mann Island, Liverpool Waterfront, L3 1BP
Impropriety’s Journey To The Yet Unknown @ St Georges Hall, 18.00 – 21.00, free
Impropriety, an improvisation theatre company usually seen at The Kazimier, will lead a walk through the cells and corridors of the glorious St Georges Hall. In its past housing a court, prison, ballroom and concert theatre, the venue has a rich history which the group intend to explore through story and song. Expect to encounter ghosts of the glamorous and less desirable variety, but mostly a brilliant chance to explore behind the scenes of one of our most beloved landmarks.
St Georges Hall (Heritage Centre), St George’s Place, L1 1JJ
Printmaking @ the Bluecoat, 18.00 – 21.00, free
We recently wrote about the musicians that use the printing facilities at the Bluecoat Print Studios. Now is your chance to use the screenprinting and intaglio studios with a one-hundred year old press, with experts on hand to demonstrate the processes involved that can produce such wonderful art work. Expect to fall in love with the craft.
The Bluecoat, School Lane, L1 3BX
What Lies Beneath @ The Head of Steam Pub, 19.00 – 21.00 & 21.30 – 23.30, £15, book online
When we read this we imagined a Creep scenario, getting locked into Lime St after hours in the dark. Urgh. Apparently this historic location has only just become open to the public, and was the old basement of the North Western Hotel, built in 1867. Night Vision Investigations promise “doors slamming shut on command, unaccountable voices being whispered and people being touched by invisible hands”. I reality expect over-18’s, dark spaces, Derek Ackora style-spirit discussions, and hopefully an insight into Victorian Liverpool.
The Head of Steam Pub, 7 Lime St, L1 1RJ
Liverpool ONE Discovery with RIBA, 19.30 – 21.30, free, booking required
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) lead a discovery tour in and around the city’s transformational Capital of Culture led development, Liverpool ONE. Known for research and discussion around how architecture effects communities and neighbourhoods and the importance of great design, this tour by RIBA should prove an interesting foray into L1’s conversion of public to private space.
Please e-mail anna.johnson@riba.org or call 0151 703 0107 to book your free place.
Meeting Point: The Bluecoat Courtyard, School Lane, L1 3BX
Red Wire Open Studio Art Fair, 19.30 – 23.30, free, art work available to buy
After a sabbatical of nearly three years, Red Wire Art Organisation has again returned to opening as a gallery space, in addition to the studios it provides. This is something to celebrate; a much needed addition to the city’s artist-led spaces, Red Wire’s ambitious exhibition CV has included work by Daniel Johnson and Jad Fair. This Friday their artists convert studios into mini-art stalls selling artworks, zines, prints, t-shirts, CDs and more.
Red Wire Art Studio, Carlisle Building, 69 Victoria St, L1 6DE
Polly Morgan – Live and Stuffing! @ Victoria Gallery & Museum, 19.00 – 20.30, free
Controversial taxidermy artist Polly Morgan gives a live taxidermy demonstration at (we think) the city’s most beautiful neo-gothic building, the Victoria Gallery & Museum. The University of Liverpool’s centre-piece, this building has been open and free to the public since 2008, and houses fossils and dinosaur skeletions as well as work by Turner and Freud. Their Audubon room is inspiration for Polly’s visit and the VGM’s next exhibition, Specacle of the Lost (opening 31 May), cuated by our very own editor Laura Robertson. Well recommended.
VGM, University of Liverpool, Ashton St, Off Brownlow Hill, L69 3DR
Rainbow Lights Homotopia IDAHO 50 Merseyside @ Active Learning Lab, 20.45 – 05.00
PLUS
inside:OUT @ Metropolitan Cathedral, 21.30 – 23.00, both free
Yes, yes we cheated, this is two events, but both worth catching. There couldn’t be more of an architectural-opposite than the two buildings nestled next to the Victoria Gallery, both offering light shows on the night. Rainbow Lights at UoL’s Active Learning Lab is a collaboration with 50 organisations in support of Homotopia to mark International Day Against Homophobia. Just over the road, kaleidoscopic images created from photographic fragments of the Metropolitan Cathedral’s beautiful stained glass is projected onto the outdoor altar of the cathedral by new media artist Andy McKeown.
Active Learning Laboratory, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill, L69 3BX
Metropolitan Cathedral, Mount Pleasant, L3 5TQ
Light & Sound LightNight Afterparty @ Liverpool Academy of Arts, 00.30 – 04.00, free
If you fancy marking the end of Light Night with some drinks, art and music, then you’re in luck. Liverpool Sound City - slap bang in the middle of their city wide music festival – take over the Liverpool Academy of Arts into the early hours of Saturday morning. TVLUX and Mak-UH provide a visual lightshow, and CLINIC DJs and the Kazimier Krunk Band are on hand for the tunes.
Liverpool Academy of Arts, 32 Seel St, L1 4BE (ENTRANCE – ACCESS TO REAR OF BUILDING VIA WOLSTENHOLME SQ – near The Kazimier)
… And Our Recommended Routes for the night
Light Night Option #1
14.00 – 20.00 Favela! @ The Royal Standard
17.30 – 21.00 Polaroid Pop-up Studio @ Open Eye Gallery
19.30 – 21.30 Liverpool ONE Discovery with RIBA
Light Night Option #2
18.00 – 21.00 Impropriety’s Journey To The Yet Unknown @ St Georges Hall
19.00 – 21.00 & 21.30 – 23.30 What Lies Beneath @ The Head of Steam Pub
Light Night Option #3
16.00 – 23.30 Augmented Reality Dance Party @ Art House Sq (FACT)
19.00 – 20.30 Polly Morgan – Live and Stuffing! @ Victoria Gallery & Museum
20.45 – 05.00 Rainbow Lights Homotopia IDAHO 50 Merseyside @ Active Learning Lab
21.30 – 23.00 inside:OUT @ Metropolitan Cathedral
More recommended routes can be found on the official Light Night 2012 website
