Culture Diary w/c 14-07-2025
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…
Monday – Exhibition Continues: Drawing (Paper) Show 2025 @ The Bridewell Studios & Gallery – FREE
Drawing – so often erroneously seen as the preliminary step before getting down to making the ‘real’ art – is, quite rightly, celebrated in and of itself here. Featuring more than 50 artists from around the world, this latest iteration of the Drawing (Paper) Show – as it frequently has in the past – will no doubt challenge our expectations of the medium. As previously, artists in the exhibition (including familiar names Caroline Gorick, Penny Davenport and Tomo) will also appear in Drawing Paper, marking the publication’s 10th edition. See you there.
Continuing: Liverpool Biennial 2025: BEDROCK – FREE
The 13th edition of Liverpool Biennial continues across the city and the public realm. There is the usual rich mix of institutional and ‘found’ spaces, with the city-wide arts festival a celebration of discovery as much as anything else. This iteration’s subtitle, BEDROCK, suggests nothing if not a solid foundation from which to build. Curator Marie-Anne McQuay and an array of international artists’ excavations of and responses to the city await. Check individual venues for opening days/times.
Further Reading: My Life in the Biennial with Ghosts; Liverpool Biennial: BEDROCK Review
Continuing: Independents Biennial 2025 – FREE
Running in parallel to BEDROCK is the well-established Independents Biennial which, this year, feels as ambitious as ever. Taking place in an astonishing 120 locations, expect degree show first-timers to the likes of Rebecca Chesney, Johnny Vegas, and Brigitte Jurack. Today sees the 6pm private view of Breadcrumbs at Birch Studios & Gallery (Hamilton Square, Birkenhead), a group exhibition exploring folkloric themes.
LAAF: Archiving Nostalgia 7pm @ FACT Liverpool – £5/£8
This evening of screenings as part of Liverpool Arab Arts Fest (LAAF) includes short- and longform films. Lebanese director Evelyne Hlais’, He Looked At Me, creatively responds to a documentary shot in the aftermath of a massacre. Taqwa Bint Ali x NOWNESS’ 2025 short, Memories of a Wedding, frames marriage ceremonies as cultural event. And Amine Hattou’s feature length, Janitou, reflects on the success of a 1980s Bollywood romance film in Algeria, to interrogate what love means in today’s Algerian society’.
Videodrome 8pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35
A sexy sci-fi cult classic from David Cronenberg (The Fly, History of Violence, Naked Lunch), prepare to be grossed out as sleazy TV exec Max Renn (James Woods) commissions a new type of programme: Videodrome. As the violence, torture and hallucinations get ever more extreme, the signal’s source is finally revealed…
Further reading from our Archive: Beyond Uncanny Valley – AI and the Movies
Tuesday – Allie X 7pm @ Arts Club Theatre, Liverpool – £22.50
Dark electro avant-pop from singer, songwriter and visual artist, Alexandra Ashley Hughes – AKA Allie X. With special guests Maiah Manser, and support from MARiMARi.
Wednesday – LAAF Artist Talk: Mohamed Gohar 4pm @ Yamama Café & Bar, 31-32 Parliament St, Liverpool – FREE (booking required)
Architect, artist, and urban heritage strategist, Mohamed Gohar’s The Alexandrian visual arts project ruminates on the evolution of Egypt’s second largest city – a city facing, says Gohar, ‘long-impacting economic, demographic and social challenges.’ Hear more from the artist at this afternoon’s informal talk.
LAAF: Palestine Minus One 7pm @ the Bluecoat – £5
An evening of readings and, no doubt, discussion, sparked by forthcoming Comma Press collection, Palestine Minus One. The book contains short, genre-inflected stories, that collectively look back from the Nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. Storytelling as rallying call, the evening features writers Mazen Maarouf, and Anwar Hamed, along with editor, Basma Ghalayini.
Thursday – Liverpool Biennial 2025: Drop-in Weekly Tea and Talk Tours 2pm @ 20 Jordan Street – FREE
This does what it says on the tin tour offers a way to ease yourself in to the Biennial if all those sites, artists and the theme itself prove a bit overwhelming – it can be a lot to take in. If our experience of this edition’s Biennial volunteers is anything to go by, you’ll be in safe, informative, hands.
Pavements 7.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £14.85
So-called as it presents the Pavement we think we know alongside one played by a cast of actors (including Stranger Things’ Joe Keery), director Alex Ross Perry’s film, Pavements, has its cake and eats it in this meta, atypical look at the band of their generation.
Friday – LAAF: A Grain of Sand 7.30pm @ Unity Theatre – £15
Commissioned by London Palestine Film Festival, this one-woman show (adapted from Leila Boukarim and Asaf Luzon’s A Million Kites: Testimonies and Poems from the Children of Gaza) employs Palestinian folklore to convey the horrors of war through the eyes of Renad, a young Gazan girl in search of her family.
Stop Making Sense 8.40pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35
The greatest concert film of all time? Stop Making Sense is certainly up there. Capturing Talking Heads at the peak of their powers, it overflows with energy, innovation and – of course – an incredible repertoire of songs. Directed by Jonathan Demme, it’s memorable not least for David Byrne’s stage presence (the showmanship, the suits, the moves!).
Saturday – BOOTFEST: Cassia from 2pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £18
A day of music for less than 20 quid, Macclesfield indie band Cassia top a jam-packed BOOTFEST bill in support of new long-player, everyone, outside. Support comes from Permanent (Joy), Tilly Louise, Bayboards, Vincent’s Last Summer, Honey Motel, Hannah Mazey, Bite, Room Two and Cornerstone.
LAAF: Akram Abdulfattah 8pm @ the Philharmonic Music Room, Liverpool – £15
Palestinian-American violinist, composer and producer, Akram Abdulfattah, fuses jazz with middle eastern and Indian music traditions.
Sunday – LAAF Family Day 12pm @ Sefton Park Palm House – FREE
Marking the end of another LAAF, this year’s Family Day includes music from the likes of the Yemeni Al Awahdal Band, and The Egyptian Jazz Projekt, calligraphy workshops, Levantine and Palestinian folk tales, and, of course, a range of Arabic cuisine.
Black Narcissus 1.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35
The filmmaking partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced an astonishingly fruitful body of work. It includes three of my all time favourite films – A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and 1948′s The Red Shoes. The middle of that trio – in a large aspect an uncritical, darkly colonial view of spreading ‘our’ religion to the world – Black Narcissus is also a study in losing one’s mind in the remote surrounds of a Himalayan convent. Starring Deborah Kerr and David Farrar, alongside them, the real star turn is Kathleen Byron’s incredible performance as psychologically tormented Sister Ruth.
Mike Pinnington
Images/media, from top: Videodrome still; Kara Chin, ‘Mapping the Wasteland – Can and Bottle’, Liverpool Biennial 2025 on Berry Street. Photography by Rob Battersby; Archiving Nostalgia; Mohamed Gohar, detail, from The Alexandrian series; Pavements film artwork; A Grain of Sand promo artwork; Akram Abdulfattah Live in London
