Culture Diary w/c 10-07-2023
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…
Monday – And still, it remains 12pm @ The Pod, Baltic Creative – FREE
Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF, the UK’s oldest Arab arts festival),which is celebrating a quarter of a century of platforming traditional and contemporary Arabic culture, got underway last week. A second chance to catch And still, it remains, sees artist filmmakers Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah’s address legacies of colonialism.
Tuesday – Liverpool Biennial & Independents Biennial Ongoing – FREE
This iteration of the Biennial brings world class contemporary art to venues across the city, including Tate Liverpool, FACT, Open Eye and the Bluecoat, as well as so-called ‘found spaces’, such as the Tobacco Warehouse, Cotton Exchange and more. In parallel, the Independents Biennial draws attention to and celebrates the creativity that already exists in and around the region.
Read our review: A Reckoning: Liverpool Biennial
Photie Man: 50 Years of Tom Wood: Exhibition Tour 11am @ Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool – £14/concs
With Photie Man, the Walker has drawn on fifty years of photographer Tom Wood’s output. A large and expansive exhibition which includes his iconic photographs of New Brighton and Liverpool, tag along for this tour bringing you closer to Wood’s work and decision-making process.
Wednesday – Exhibition Closing: Set To Default: Daniel Halsall @ The Royal Standard, Liverpool – FREE
In Set To Default, Daniel Halsall communicates technology, computer data, and living in the digital information age through his minimalist figurative paintings (below).
Thursday – Translations + Keith Kopp director Q&A 6pm @ FACT Liverpool – £12.20/concs
Join director Keith Kopp for a post-screening discussion of Translations, his film about agoraphobic translator Stef, who, years after the death of her brother, is still coming to terms with the loss and the subsequent effects the event has wrought on her life. Themes of isolation, trauma, revelation – and the possibility of redemption – pervade.
Friday – The Tunnel to Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes 3.20pm & 9pm @ FACT Liverpool – £10.40/concs
Time-bending urban legends abound in The Tunnel to Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes (pictured, top), a prize-winning anime adapted from the novel and manga of the same name.
Saturday – LAAF x Bluecoat 12pm @ Bluecoat, Liverpool – FREE/£5/Pay What You Can
A joyous celebratory afternoon of Liverpool Arab Arts Festival for audiences of all ages. Expect DJs, storytelling, workshops and performance as LAAF prepares to bid a fond farewell ahead of tomorrow’s family day finale at Sefton Park’s Palm House.
Turning Together: Day 1 from 10.30am @ Bidston Observatory, Wirral – £20/£40
Termed an ‘artist development programme’, this weekend sees the first day of Turning Together, which focuses on interrogating ‘alternative ways of communicating and working together’. Expect a day of tours, talks and workshops, including from artist and educator, EXODUS; artist Rashaad Newsome; somatic practitioner Maxine Brown; and poet Day Mattar. After a street food dinner comes an evening of performance from sound artists Lizala Vi, JC Leisure and more.
Further Reading: Field Trip: Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre – Bringing Forth Other Worlds
Sunday – Exhibition Opening: Sorry, Did You Miss Me?: Stephanie Trujillo 6pm @ The Royal Standard, Liverpool – FREE
“I use my art to support my mental health and explore themes of identity, belonging, familiar and platonic relationships, trauma, grief, and healing,” says multidisciplinary artist Stephanie Trujillo. Her new exhibition opening this week as part of the Independents Biennial addresses, she says, “my past and all that I left behind”, across painting, collage, photography and poetry.
Mike Pinnington
Images, from top: The Tunnel to Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes; © Tom Wood @ the Walker; © Daniel Halsall; Bidston Observatory pic © Mathilde Grandjean
