Culture Diary w/c 15-07-2024
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…
Monday – Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF): At Home in Gaza and London 6pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – £10
Timely and poignant screening of this pioneering 2018 theatre performance which, through live-streaming and recorded video, captures the lives and reflections of artistic collaborators in Gaza and London, using creativity as a means to defy the blockade. The screening includes messages from the Gazan team and will attempt to connect live to team members still based there.
Tuesday – Eno 12.50pm @ FACT Liverpool – £11.20
From his early days with art rockers, Roxy Music, and helping guide Bowie through his experimental, towering 1970s trio of albums, Low, Heroes and Lodger, to the simple genius of his Oblique Strategies cards, Brian Eno has always marked himself out as an arch innovator. It is only correct, then, that any documentary bearing his name should also attempt to push boundaries. And so it is with this film from director, Gary Hustwit, made with specially developed software that results in a different version at every screening.
Wednesday – LAAF: Janette Ayachi: Exploring Heritage Through Poetry 6pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – £4/pay what you can
Scottish-Algerian poet Janette Ayachi was born in London and is based in Edinburgh. Here, alongside Deryn Rees-Jones, Professor of Poetry at the University of Liverpool, Ayachi prods at and interrogates dual heritage and gives a reading of her award-winning work.
Thursday – Exhibition Opening: Summer Lovin’: Dorothy X Joël Penkman @ Dorothy, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool – FREE
From a tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining to John Carpenter’s They Live and reflections on loss and grief by way of Annie Frost Nicholson‘s interdisciplinary works, Dorothy have staged some thoughtful and memorable exhibitions in recent times. Today sees Joël Penkman’s photorealistic works – including ice creams, lollipops and cocktails – take centre stage.
Friday –LAAF: Chambers of the Heart 7pm @ Unity Theatre, Liverpool – £15
Debut performance of this play charting love, desire and memory via its three protagonists: newly divorced 30-something Yasmine; Reem, a Syrian refugee in her early 40s; and septuagenarian, Mother, a woman uncomfortable in the spotlight of her son’s scrutiny of the past.
Saturday – Exhibition Closing: Arena Studios X Summer Showcase 5pm @ Elevator Studios – FREE
If you missed the recent exhibition, Life at Arena (held at Bridewell Studios & Gallery in May), this summer showcase is a great excuse to survey the work of a diverse range of artists embedded in the Baltic Triangle and part of the fabric of the city’s creative community. Exhibiting artists include Sarah Leader, Century Foxx and Sophie Baskerville.
LAAF: The Ayoub Sisters 8pm @ Liverpool Philharmonic Music Room – £15
Scottish/Egyptian classical crossover instrumentalists and composers, The Ayoub Sisters, play tracks from their critically acclaimed second album, Arabesque. Inspired by the folk songs of Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Algeria – all with a Caledonian inflection.
The Warriors 8.45pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8
A cult classic, Walter Hill’s The Warriors – set in a near future dystopian New York – sees the titular gang, falsely accused of murder, face an onslaught of misplaced revenge on rival turf as they battle to get home to safety. Notable today for its vision of a pre-gentrification NYC, at the time of its 1979 release, critic Roger Ebert declared it a ‘ballet of male violence’. Can You Dig It?!
Sunday – Exhibition Opening: Weird Futures @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – FREE
What will the future look and feel like? And what is our place in it? Weird Futures, a new season of exhibitions and workshops, seeks to explore such questions. Given that us adults have stuffed things up so thoroughly for so long, artists Roxy Topia and Paddy Gould have, perhaps wisely, collaborated with children on the evocatively titled exhibition Let Your Ideas Come Back As Children.
Exhibition Closing: LAAF: Port Cities @ Space Liverpool, Baltic Triangle – FREE
Group exhibition of newly commissioned work exploring the social, economic, political and cultural heritage shared by port cities both here and in the Arab region.
Exhibition Closing: Ain Bailey @ FACT Liverpool – FREE
Working with prisoners and their families, artist Ain Bailey explores how sound can be a vehicle for the facilitation of collective experience and personal connection, to consider how art might affect attitudes and decision making within the justice system. Immersive installation, FOUR – part of FACT Liverpool’s ongoing project, Resolution – is the result.
Mike Pinnington
Images/media, from top: At Home in London and Gaza (still): Eno trailer; Fabs, Joël Penkman, 2011; New Entryway to Rave Town Rapids (detail). Roxy Topia and Paddy Gould, 2022
