Culture Diary w/c 01-04-2019

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 loads of it’s free!

Tuesday – Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story + Q&A with Steve Sullivan (and TDN editor Mike) 6pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8

Growing up, Frank Sidebottom seemed to be ubiquitous, appearing on loads of Saturday morning kid’s shows and regional TV. In 1992, he even played Reading Festival. I was young, and didn’t know what to make of the nasal, Mancunian man-child wearing the papier-mâché head. But he was a figure of fascination. Now, director Steve Sullivan has made documentary Being Frank, a film about the mercurial Sidebottom and the man behind him, Chris Sievey. Join me (Mike P) and Steve tonight for a post screening chat about this warm and gently revelatory biopic.

Virginia Wing with Deep Throat Choir and Mich Cota 7.30pm @ the Southbank Centre, London – £12.50

Virginia Wing with Deep Throat Choir and Mich Cota 7.30pm @ the Southbank Centre, London – £12.50

Historically speaking, it’s not easy to place Virginia Wing: mid-80s avant-garde synth-pop, allied to contemporary considerations, theirs is a sound honed over the course of three records. Joined here by Deep Throat Choir, Mich Cota, sound artist Rachael Finney, dancer Maria Malone and (Liverpool-based) audio-visual artist Sam Wiehl, the collaboration explores themes around gender, digital spaces, reality and perception.

Wednesday – The Liquid Club #3: The Posthuman by Rosi Braidotti 6.30pm @ Liverpool Central Library – FREE

The Liquid Club discussion group has been inviting “collective thinking” to help drive the development of Liverpool Biennial 2020. Tonight is its third edition, and topics up for discussion will be subjectivity, individualism and the role of Europe-centric humanism. Using an extract from philosopher and feminist thinker Rosi Braidotti’s book, The Posthuman (2013), conversation will focus on how we might move away from “self-centred individualism and instead into a model that locates us in what Braidotti calls ‘an affirmative flow of relations with multiple others’”.

Ambit Magazine – A Potted History 7pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – £6/5

Ambit Magazine – A Potted History 7pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – £6/5

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of Ambit, a magazine that foregrounds poetry, prose and art. Perhaps best known by some as the magazine formerly edited by British pop artist Eduardo Paolozzi, today poet, editor, producer and social activist Briony Bax is at the helm. Bax is joined this evening by Ambit contributors Chris McCabe, Tony Dash, Jennifer Lee-Tsai and Brian Wake as they look at the evolution of the magazine through readings and, no doubt, reminiscences.

Jerwood/FVU Awards: Going, Gone @ Jerwood Space, London – FREE

This exhibition premieres two new moving image works by artists Webb-Ellis and Richard Whitby, each recipients of this year’s Jerwood/FVU Awards. Filmed over the course of summer 2018, artist duo Webb-Ellis’ work captures the excitement and uncertain, hopeful energy of youth, but also the sense – as these young people begin to come of age – of its inevitable end. Richard Whitby’s The Lost Ones, meanwhile, addresses the bureaucratic limbo faced by those waiting to have their residency status assessed. The title of the show – Going, Gone – was chosen to mark the UK’s departure from the European Union, but now takes on even greater, painfully ironic significance.

Thursday – Literary Evening: The Other 6.30pm @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – FREE

Thursday – Literary Evening: The Other 6.30pm @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – FREE

Gear up for an inclusive reading group tonight, as The Other responds to Open Eye Gallery’s current exhibition, 209 Women: portraits of female MPs shot by female photographers. The format places writers in pairs – including our contributing editor Laura collaborating with poet and researcher Janaya Pickett – to read each-other’s work in response to this show. Expect new poetry, essays, fiction and non-fiction from brand new writer-duos (and a free bar).

Friday – Exhibition Opening: Emma Smith: 5Hz & Euphonia 6pm @ Home, Manchester – FREE

Based on the musicality of social interactions, Emma Smith’s 5Hz & Euphonia invites visitors, says the web blurb, to “influence the soundscape”, and “learn a new alphabet that transcends language barriers”. When Smith showed Euphonia at the Bluecoat last year, our reviewer C. James Fagan encountered a work that, on the one hand “reacts and changes when a visitor to the gallery speaks or intones into a microphone”. On the other, he found a universal work attempting to address the self-consciousness and social judgements we’re all subject to.

Saturday – Open Haircutting 10am-6pm @ Humber Street Gallery, Hull – FREE

Saturday – Open Haircutting 10am-6pm @ Humber Street Gallery, Hull – FREE

How many times have you heard your friends compare hairdressers to theraperists? You’re feeling pampered, relaxed, and prepared to tell a complete stranger your life story. In Cut, artists Richard Houguez and Graham Jones are exploring the very same phenomena: combining haircuts with client interviews to create sound and sculptural artworks. Pop down for a free cut – all you have to do in return is talk. Expect to be asked what you think about art, your community and your city.

Sunday – Remember Imagine @ Tate Liverpool – FREE

Writers often think: what if walls could talk? If they could, it’d make our job a hell of a lot easier. Think of all those stories held in the bricks and mortar of the Royal Albert Dock, for instance… Once the epicentre of the industrial revolution, the docks had thousands of workers shipping coffee, cotton, rum, sugar and tobacco all around the world. It was also built on the shameful remnants of the transatlantic slave trade – just 13 years after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Looking ahead to the Royal Albert Dock’s 175th birthday, discuss the fate of the people who stood here before us, and imagine what the area’s future could look like.

Mike Pinnington and Laura Robertson

Posted on 02/04/2019 by thedoublenegative