Culture Diary w/c 21-08-2017
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from around the North of England and the rest of the UK – and most of it’s free!
Monday — Out Of Iraq (2016) 6.30pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £7.50/5.50
“I love you to death…” See Chris McKim and Eva Orner’s keenly felt and gripping documentary tonight at FACT: chronicling the true story of two Iraqis, translator Nayyef and soldier Btoo, who find love in Ramadi in 2004 in the midst of war. With homosexuality punishable by death, they continue fighting for their human rights as a couple in the US. Screened courtesy Liverpool Pride.
Tuesday – Talk: UP IN ARMS 4.30pm @ Bosco Theatre, Edinburgh International Book Festival — £12/10
To celebrate Comma Press’ excellent new historical-fiction anthology, Protest, two of the authors Laura Hird and Gordon Pentland take the stage to discuss their work. Expect to hear more about their creative take on British protests The Radical War of 1820, and the march from Glasgow to Falkirk to take the Carron ironworks.
Wednesday – Talk: Lou Hazelwood 6–8pm @ Queens House Showcase, Hull – FREE
Talking about her new exhibition, Intersections (pictured above), at Hull’s latest creative venue tonight, expect visual and sound artist Lou Hazelwood to give a whirlwind tour through five years’ worth of artwork and international exhibitions. Expect methods and tools to include historical and contemporary technologies, that influence people’s experiences of memory and forgetfulness. See the show until 1 September.
Thursday – Talk: Nina Chua & Lauren Velvick In Conversation 6pm @ CBS Gallery, Liverpool — FREE
Two Liverpool Biennial Associate Artists with shared research interests, Lauren Velvick and Nina Chua have a lot to talk about. Specifically, Chua’s drawings: highly detailed, and usually drawn with marker pen on paper, expect one new and one old work, representing “the passage of time, obsolescence and slow decay.” Exhibition continues (by appointment) until 27 August.
Scalarama Liverpool 2017 Programme Launch 7—9pm @ The Baltic Social, Liverpool – FREE
This varied and genuinely entertaining nationwide, DIY cinema festival returns 1-30 September. Be the first to learn about their packed programme, which includes BFI distribution choice José Ramón Larraz’s gothic horror Symptoms (1974), and brand new silent film London Symphony (2017, above) – a contemporary take on the “city symphony” genre of creative non-fiction that flourished in the 1920s.
Friday – Exhibition Opening: The Landscape: Josephine Callaghan & Sarah Cameron @ Cubitt, London – FREE
Emerging from their time spent at an artist community in Zarakes, Greece, this is an intriguing show of new work – at a guess, sculpture and poetic fragments – made in parallel. Expect themes of the romantic, the eerie and the act of making itself.
Saturday – Exhibition Open: Why Look At Animals? 10am—4pm @ The Atkinson, Southport — FREE
Taking John Berger’s famous text of 1977 of the same name as a starting point, the Atkinson’s current show aims to illustrate Berger’s arguments with artworks (like Edward Landseer’s, below) from the early Victorian period to the present day. Namely, how has humanity lost its contact with nature since moving into cities? How and why have animals become so alien, so “other”?
The Art Of Wellbeing Tour 12.30pm–1.15pm @ Manchester Art Gallery — FREE
Expect an alternative tour around the Manchester Art Galleries today with guide John Ward: using the Five Ways to Wellbeing as inspiration, and linked to significant paintings in the collection.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Double Bill: The Thing (1982) & Big Trouble in Little China (1986) 6pm @ Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield — £9
Two cult classics from John Carpenter tonight starring the dazzling Kurt Russell and a bunch of stomach-churning special effects. In the former (pictured, below), Russell plays a pilot who fights recently uncovered alien life in the Antarctic (expect flamethrowers); and then in the latter, a truck driver who fights a 2000-year old evil spirit in San Francisco’s Chinatown (expect kung-fu). Brilliant.
Sunday — Bank Holiday Special / David Bowie Night 7pm—330am @ The Attic Bar, Liverpool – FREE
What better way to spend a Bank Holiday than by dancing to Young Americans, Heroes, Jean Genie, Fashion, Under Pressure, Oh! You Pretty Things, Fame, Rebel Rebel… Need we go on?
Laura Robertson, Editor
Images, from top: Lou Hazelwood’s exhibition Intersections at Queens House Showcase, Hull. Poster for new silent film London Symphony (2017), showing at the upcoming UK Scalarama festival. Poster for The Landscape: Josephine Callaghan & Sarah Cameron at Cubitt, London (also main image). The Angler’s Guard 1830 by Sir Edward Landseer (1802 -1873), part of Why Look At Animals? at the Atkinson, Southport. Poster for The Thing (1982), showing at Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield
