Culture Diary w/c 14-10-2019
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!
Monday – In:Visible Women Week Dual-heritage, diaspora and Liverpool life from 1pm @ Tate Liverpool – FREE
From today and for the next two weeks, as part of Liverpool Irish Festival, Tate Exchange will host In:Visible Women. Grappling with the place of women in Irish society and the creative industries, the project weaves together stories, discussions, workshops, performances and activism. The aim is to invite conversations about dual heritage and offer a space for female exchange, to produce and collect cultural capital, from community stories and ideas to making a set of ‘Wiki women’ entries and artworks.
Tuesday – Black Girl Lit Club: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye 6.30pm @ Toxteth Library – FREE
When Toni Morrison died in August, my Twitter feed – filled with posts about the late American novelist and essayist – indicated (in fact, screamed) that I had been missing out by not yet having read her. Shortly afterwards, I did so for the first time, in an essay published in the Guardian. Writing on the condition of being a Black author, Morrison states: “Western or European writers believe or can choose to believe their work is naturally ‘race-free’ or ‘race transcendent’. Whether it is or not is another question – the fact is the problem has not worried them. They can take it for granted that it is because Others are ‘raced’ – whites are not.” Join Black Girl Lit Club this week for a discussion on Morrison’s 1970 debut, The Bluest Eye, and her ongoing legacy.
Wednesday – BlacKkKlansman 6pm @ Blackburne House – £Donation
Director Spike Lee won his first Oscar (Best Adapted Screenplay) for BlacKkKlansman, a film that tells the incredible true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the African American detective who infiltrated and exposed the Ku Klux Klan. Better late than never (just like Lee’s overdue Oscar), a key question is why this story wasn’t better known, sooner. While we can all hazard a guess at the answer, it’s clear that society can no longer afford – as if it ever could – to delegate the responsibility of ridding ourselves of racism, and that voices like Lee’s are as vital as ever in showing the way.
Thursday – Book Launch: I Will Not Be Erased by gal-dem 6.30pm @ The Women’s Org, Liverpool £8/£5
Created by women and non-binary people of colour, I Will Not Be Erased is the first book published by gal-dem, an online and print magazine committed to ‘addressing inequality and misrepresentation in the industry’. With the subtitle ‘Our stories about growing up as people of colour’, this collection includes fourteen writers who relate previously underexplored – by the mainstream, that is – experiences. Join gal-dem’s Niellah Airboine and Leah Cowan alongside founding editor of Aurelia Magazine, Kya Buller, for this Liverpool launch.
Exhibition Opening: LOOK Photo Biennial from 5pm @ various venues, Liverpool – FREE
This launch evening encompasses various Liverpool venues marks the second phase of this year’s LOOK Photo festival, which focuses on international dialogue with a specific emphasis on UK and China (current events makes it a fascinating lens through which to view the relationship). Things get underway from 5pm at St George’s Hall, then at Open Eye Gallery from 6pm, with PEER TO PEER, ‘a major new exhibition bringing together 14 rising artists from the UK and China, selected by 14 leading curators around the world’. The night also includes JUMP!, an exhibition at The Gallery, Liverpool, and concludes with an afterparty at nearby Constellations. Se you there?
Exhibition Opening: Nam June Paik @ Tate Modern, London – £13
Nam June Paik began his career as a classical pianist, training in 1950s Tokyo (having fled Seoul with his family at the outbreak of the Korean War). Making his way to Germany, he became a disciple of Joseph Beuys and immersed himself in the Fluxus movement. This wouldn’t be his only collaboration of note, as Paik fostered significant professional relationships with cellist Charlotte Moorman, avant-garde composer John Cage and dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. He also beat Andy Warhol to making the first meaningful video work. If you’re even remotely interested in the development of post-war modernism and culture’s evolution, check this out.
Friday – Festival of Ideas: Leonora Carrington’s Labyrinth of Film 10am @ Tate Liverpool – FREE
A series of talks, exhibitions and performances intended to engage academics, students and members of the public alike, Edge Hill University’s Festival of Idea’s kicked off earlier this week. Today sees discussion of the so called ‘lost surrealist’ Leonora Carrington, with particular regard to her overlooked engagement with moving image. Carrington, of course, was the subject of a well-received retrospective at Tate Liverpool in 2014, so this bit of programming offers a welcome opportunity to revisit her work and ideas. Further Reading: Female Human Animal
Saturday – How can we do business? The Art B&B Experiment 1pm @ Art B&B, Blackpool – FREE
Later this year, a new boutique hotel opens its doors in Blackpool. Now, you may well ask ‘why include this information in these pages?’ But, this is no ordinary hostelry, the B&B part of Art B&B being something of a misnomer. Each of the establishment’s bedrooms has been created by nineteen contemporary artists, so called ‘unique installations for sleep, relaxation and play’. The long term intention is to embed it in the heart of the community, with plans for Art B&B to host workshops, artist talks and more. This first workshop, led by artist and economist Kate Rich, asks: ‘What does a home for creatives, change-makers and the culturally curious look like?’
Manchester Literature Festival: Stories of Uprising 4pm @ International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester – FREE
A timely publication for those of us who watch the news aghast at the liberties being taken and the bare faced lies being told by the powerful, Resist is the latest anthology of fiction paired with essays from Manchester’s Comma Press. Join Comma’s Ra Page and Resist contributors as they discuss ‘key moments of British protest and resistance through those involved rather than those who hold power’.
Sunday – Walking Tour: When Bauhaus Met the Hampstead Spies 11am @ Belsize Park Station, London – £20/£15
Modernist movers and shakers plus cold war espionage intrigue? Sign us up! This expert-led walking tour reveals truths (and no doubt the odd unproven whisper) about a building in NW3 that Bauhauslers Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy once called home. It just so happened to also house the KGB’s finest spy recruiters – leading to the postcode being dubbed ’the Bolshevik colony of Hampstead’. The walk coincides with RIBA exhibition Beyond Bauhaus – Modernism in Britain 1933–66
Mike Pinnington
Images and media from top: Nam June Paik trailer, Tate; BlacKkKlansman; Alix-Marie-Orlando-2014-photo-credit-Ben-Westoby; Leonora Carrington; Resist front cover
