Culture Diary w/c 30-01-2017
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from around the UK – and most of it’s free!
Monday (Until Saturday) – Visions Of The Future: Conversations Across Time 10am–4pm @ Tate Liverpool — FREE (Drop In)
Inspired by influential Wirral-born science-fiction author and philosopher Olaf Stapledon, this week-long University of Liverpool/Tate Exchange event, Visions of the Future: Conversations Across Time, asks the open and inviting question: “What do you think the future looks like?” Presented alongside artworks taken from the university’s recent Writing a History of the Future event, have a go at answering the question yourself. Expect recent events and the current predicament we find ourselves in to provide very fertile ground. Continues until 4 Feb.
Tuesday – Cities: A Course In Urban Sociology 10–11am @ The Bluecoat, Liverpool — FREE
Want to know how cities develop, how they shape the realities of people who use their spaces and what the implications of these things are? This free course running until 30 May (led by Dr Paul Jones, Bluecoat’s Sociologist-in-Residence for 2017) introduces the theories and themes of urban social life to address key issues, such as: the social lives of cities, social divisions and the political interventions that have sought to redress them.
Wednesday – Make Place Talks Programme: Gill Perry 6–7.30pm @ Salford Museum & Gallery — £3
Join Gill Perry, Professor of Art History at the Open University and chair of the Open Arts Archive, for a discussion about the roles and relationships formed within the home and family dynamic. What are the sociological and psychological impacts of the domestic environment? And how do they effect our lives?
Nik Colk Void And Klara Lewis + Support From ALGOBABEZ 8pm @ Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room — £10.50
Programmed by Deep Hedonia as part of FACT Liverpool’s group exhibition No Such Thing As Gravity (until 5 February), this performance in the Liverpool Philharmonic’s Music Room venue will likely make new fans of the innovative art-tinged soundscapes of electronic music producers Nik Colk Void and Klara Lewis. Expect “experimentation, field recordings, electronics and an eclectic mix of influences” from the London-based sound sculptress Nik Colk Void and experimental Swedish composer, Lewis. Supporting the headlining duo are algoravers ALGOBABEZ, who we spoke to recently about the tunes that have had the most impact on their careers thus far.
Thursday — Exhibition Opening: Launch Pad: Stick Or Twist 6–9pm @ Castefield Gallery, Manchester — FREE
Bronze casts, alter egos, Jesmonite, and a girl dressed as a frog – exhibition curator, CG Associate member and Manchester-based artist Kieran Leach has reliquished control of Castlefield’s latest show, giving the individual artists the option to “stick or twist” – either exhibit a work chosen by him, or swap and include something different.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) 6pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £11/10/9/8
The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2010, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s film (trailer, top) invokes myth, legend and supernatural goings-on in a tale of coming to terms with life’s travails, and ultimately, mortality. Weerasethakul, speaking to the Guardian last year, professed his confusion at the film’s success in connecting with audiences: “I liked it because there were so many personal references, but I didn’t think they could translate to the audience. Some of my other films I can understand why they got a reaction because there are certain things in them cinematically; but Uncle Boonmee, it’s such a strange one.” A lyrical, poetic and contemplative film, this screening is a reminder of why it attracted such accolades on release.
Friday — PICK OF THE WEEK: The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme @ Venues Nationwide — Prices Vary
For the average western audience member, brushes with Japanese cinema have most likely largely come about courtesy of either anime breakthrough hits such as 1988’s Akira, or Ghost in the Shell (1995), or the wildly successful Studio Ghibli output. Live-action, perhaps, not so much. But since 2004 the Japan Foundation, London, has sought to remedy this situation, organising a Japanese film programme to be screened at 15 venues across the UK; including Manchester, Sheffield, Kendal, Nottingham, London and Bristol. With the subtitle Odd Obsessions – Desires, Hopes and Impulses in Japanese Cinema, expect a host of UK premieres (including Destruction Babies, pictured below) across a variety of genres.
Exhibition Opening: Public View 6–11pm @ The Bluecoat, Liverpool — FREE
Impressively, 2017 marks the 300th anniversary of Liverpool arts institution The Bluecoat. To mark so auspicious a milestone, artistic director Bran Biggs has drawn on Bluecoat’s rich history in bringing together work from more than 100 artists who have previously exhibited at the gallery. Including John Akomfrah (who recently won this year’s Artes Mundi prize), Sonia Boyce, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Jeremy Deller, Lubaina Himid, Mark Leckey, Yoko Ono, Yinka Shonibare and Imogen Stidworthy, the exhibition, goes the PR “aims to reflect something of Bluecoat’s curatorial distinctiveness and the breadth of artists we have supported over this period”.
Exhibition Opening: COUM Transmissions @ Humber Street Gallery/Fruit/Tunnel Bar, Hull — FREE/£12/15
They were called “the wreckers of civilisation” in 1976 by a Conservative MP following a show at the ICA — and probably loved it. And now, for Hull’s City of Culture year, controversial art collective COUM make a triumphant return to their home city. See founding artists Cosey Fanni Tutti and Genesis P-ORRIDGE perform live at Fruit tonight — a former dockside fruit warehouse where they “scrudged” for food to survive — in addition to an exhibition of COUM artefacts from the artists’ own archives (10am–8pm, Humber), plus tomorrow’s panel discussion (2.30pm, Humber), and club night (10.30pm, Tunnel). Exhibition continues until 22 March.
Sunday — Exhibition Opening: Ian McKeever: Against Architecture 3–6pm @ Matt’s Gallery, London — FREE
Expect abstract painting and analogue photography on panels and canvas from the widely exhibited artist Ian McKeever (b.1946). Showing work from two recent series, Eagduru and Against Architecture (both 2012-13), we’re mostly looking forward to seeing McKeever’s high-contrast, interior photographs of his home in Dorset.
Mike Pinnington
