“This exhibition is a road trip, with Ruscha as the driver.” Stephen Clarke rides shotgun through Tate Liverpool’s Artist Rooms: Ed Ruscha… 

The text-based artwork, ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS (1976), acts as the frontispiece to Tate Liverpool’s exhibition Artist Rooms: Ed Ruscha at RIBA North. The exhibition is a road trip, with Ruscha as the driver and his artist books acting as our guide. Our first stop is the seminal publication Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963). This small book contains photographs taken by Ruscha along the highway, Route 66, between Los Angeles and Oklahoma. On a touch screen monitor next to its display case the viewer can leaf through a digital copy; and see other complete copies of seven of Ruscha’s classic books. These selected publications provide our itinerary, each one focusing attention upon the built environment – a suitable subject for a gallery at the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Tanked up on gasoline, we are on the move. Our route is punctuated by text-based artworks. The large letters OK (1990) suggest that it is okay to continue our journey and, perhaps, reference Oklahoma as OK is the state’s abbreviated form as it would appear on a vehicle licence plate. It is worthwhile noting that Ruscha is an ‘Okie’ – a migrant to Los Angeles who has had to learn how to read this city. Our next guidebook is Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966), an accordion-format book that unfolds to nearly twenty-five feet in length. We literally have to travel along this continuous image – the viewers’ eyes in motion as the book is read. In the gallery, six photographic prints represent the Strip. On the negatives for the prints Ruscha has applied a razor blade and sandpaper to distress each picture. The result is that we become aware of the artist’s hand that disrupts our view through the car window.

The next punctuation point is another text-based piece, DANCE? (1973). This piece uses foodstuffs – coffee, egg white, mustard, chilli sauce, ketchup and cheddar cheese – to produce the letters that stain the canvas. DANCE? functions as a juncture between the diners and nightclubs pictured in the photographs of the Strip and invites the sort of physical activity that could take place in the next series of photographs of swimming pools from the artist book Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass (1968). These pools seem to be the communal spaces of apartment complexes or, more likely, roadside motels. Motion is arrested as the still, uninviting pools wait for guests to arrive. Around the corner are photographs from Thirtyfour Parking Lots in Los Angeles (1967). It is a fanciful leap to consider drivers parking up to take advantage of the empty pools; however, both sets of work await intervention. The question function of Dance? becomes ‘Park?’ and ‘Swim?’

America, Her Best Product (1974) is the next punctuation and effectively introduces artworks that reference street maps. A set of aerial photographs of parking lots taken from a helicopter gives us the bird’s eye view or downward gaze that is the vantage point of the following painting and etchings. The painting BLVD. – AVE. – ST (2006), is dissected by thick pale bands across a light grey speckled ground which connotes the surface of the Los Angeles roads. The harshness of sunlight is apparent in the grey tones whilst a band of bright orange at the top of the canvas adds to the feeling of heat. This painting is supported by a group of small, coloured etchings that are comprised of lines and street names – reinforcing the reference to map reading. It is at this point in our journey that we move on to higher ground.

Snow-capped mountains that seemingly have no place in the hot desert of southern California are the background for two large paintings. These are overlaid with text: one reads DAILY PLANET (2002), while the other promises Pay Nothing Until April (2003). Are these billboard adverts that we drive past? A strong connection is made to the movie industry since The Daily Planet is the workplace of Clark Kent, and the snow-capped mountain is the logo for Paramount Pictures. At the close of this section the piece Miracle #64 (1975) depicts a strong shaft of light shining from the top left corner that cuts through the darkness of the background. It is often interpreted as a depiction of light emanating from a film projector, or alternatively a heavenly intervention; it could be seen more prosaically as the overhead light from a streetlamp.

The penultimate punctuation point is the word painting HONK (1962). Situated high on the wall, thus disrupting the flow, the piece breaks the silence of Miracle #64. At the close of this exhibition, references to the film industry take centre stage as the text pieces MAD SCIENTIST (1975) and HOLLYWOOD TANTRUM (1979) connote cinematic drama. Perhaps, the fate of the screenwriter was enacted by the minor drama of Royal Road Test (1967) – on display as a digital book – that documented Ruscha dropping a vintage typewriter from a speeding Buick. Did Ruscha take on the role of the scientist undertaking a mad experiment or was the typewriter thrown through the window as an act of aggression?

The exhibition closes with a final text-based artwork. THE END #40 (2003), is a depiction of the last few seconds of a movie, caught between frames. The two words, ‘The End’, are cut along the horizontal plane and so simulate the motion of the film. The dynamic of this exhibition has been the viewer moving through the landscape of southern California; however, the main concern has been the relationship between Ruscha’s books with his paintings, prints and photographs. The centrality of his publications is evident: it is clearly affirmed that Ruscha is the artist that does books.

Stephen Clarke is Senior Lecturer in Critical and Contextual Studies, University of Chester

Artist Rooms: Ed Ruscha continues @ Tate Liverpool until 14 June

Images: Edward Ruscha, ARTISTS WHO DO BOOKS 1976; Ed Ruscha, OK (State I) 1990. ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. © Ed Ruscha; Edward Ruscha, DAILY PLANET 2003 &PAY NOTHING UNTIL APRIL 2003

Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…

Monday – Portrait of a Lady on Fire 5.10pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

When Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire won the Queer Palm at Cannes, jurors were quick to point out that “above all,” it is “an incredible film for cinema”, full stop. All who have seen it are inclined to agree. Telling a tale of desire between a painter and her subject in late 18th century France, this is a “period piece with a distinctly modern feminist sensibility”.

Tuesday – Exhibitions Continue: John Akomfrah: Listening All Night to the Rain & Gender Stories @ the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool – FREE  

Recently opened, this fine pair of exhibitions should be savoured. John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night to the Rain (commissioned for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024) offers a space in which to meditate on colonial and post-colonial history. Drawing on memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change, this is serious art for serious times – past, present, and future. In Gender Stories, we find works brought together to address questions including (but not limited to): What is gender? How have ideas about it changed over time? How does it shape our day-to-day lives? Includes work by Helen Chadwick, David Hockney, Zanele Muholi and many more.

Wednesday – Book Launch: Melete, by Jennifer Lee Tsai 6pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – £2-£5 (£15 including book)

Artist in Residence at the Bluecoat, Jennifer Lee Tsai, joined by Costa Book of the Year Poetry Award winner Hannah Lowe, launches her first full-length collection of poems, Melete, which tackles culture, heritage, memory, migration, and mysticism. Expect readings by the pair, who will be in conversation with curator Marie-Anne McQuay, and music from pianist Hannah Chiu.

From the archive: Jennifer Lee Tsai: Fallen Star 

British Art History – Forgotten Chapters, with Professor Tamar Garb 6.30pm @ Exhibition Research Lab @ John Lennon Art & Design Building, Liverpool – FREE    

The current exhibition at Liverpool John Moores University’s Exhibition Research Lab throws light on self-taught South African photographer, George Hallett, who worked in the country both pre- and post-apartheid. This first in a series of conversations with South African artists and art historians in response to the exhibition, finds its curator Dr Christine Eyene joined by fellow art historian and curator Professor Tamar Garb, to discuss Dumile Feni (1942-1991). Photographed by Hallett in 1983 (below), Feni was one of the first Black South African visual artists to live in exile in London and New York from 1968 to 1991.

Thursday – Talking Culture: Public Discussion Group 5.30pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – FREE (booking required) 

The second in a series of discussions convened by the Bluecoat ‘to think, talk, and explore today’s major issues,’ this meeting, led by Dr. Kirsty Morrin, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool, uses as its departure point the title Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: The Grenfell Tower Fire. With director Steve McQueen’s essential Grenfell film currently screening at the gallery, the discussion offers a timely opportunity – and reminder – to keep social justice on the agenda. 

Friday – Exhibition Opening: Small Wonders: Reimagining British Art @ Williamson Art Gallery and Museum – FREE

Marking the 75th anniversary of 1951′s Festival of Britain, this Hayward Gallery touring show offers a contemporary reimagining of the hopeful landmark exhibition that accompanied it. Bringing together 50 artists who have participated in the British Art Show since its inception in 1979, with each artist creating new, small-scale works, Small Wonders promises a focused overview of recent(ish) British art history.

Exhibition Opening: Nocturnal Rainbow: Maurice Cockrill RA 6pm @ Bridewell Studios & Gallery – FREE

2026 sees bastion of Liverpool’s artist led scene, Bridewell Studios & Gallery, celebrate 50 years since moving into the site of a former police station in 1976. Marking this impressive anniversary, Nocturnal Rainbow showcases the work of one of its most influential early residents, Maurice Cockrill RA (1936 – 2013), presenting paintings made when he lived and worked there between 1978 and 1982.

Saturday – Music from the Movies: The Best of 20th Century Film Soundtracks 7.30pm @ Liverpool Philharmonic Hall – from £10

As debates about how we consume cinema in general – via a still-growing multitude of streaming platforms, or the good old-fashioned way – rumble on, there is a parallel trend for experiencing film scores live. Whatever your own preferences, tonight’s concert at Liverpool Philharmonic (conducted by Anthony Gabriele) promises bangers from Star Wars, Back to the Future, Casablanca, Vertigo, and more.

Sunday – Last Chance to See: Self Defined. New Stories from Archives @ Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – FREE

A “first attempt,” says curator Viktoria Bavykina, ”in our long-term work with photography archives from countries occupied or influenced by the Soviet regime,” Self Defined mines the “histories, legacies, and lives shaped by years of totalitarian and imperial rule.” The result is a poignant, sometimes speculative, coming together of family stories, including: an exploration of post-Second World War displacement in Poland and Ukraine; the history of the Crimean Tatars in the 20th century; rural life in Latvia; collages of Soviet tourist photographs, and family archives. Catch it while you can.

Mike Pinnington

Images, from top: Portrait of a Lady on Fire; Listening All Night to the Rain, John Akomfrah; George Hallett, Dumile. New York, 1983. Courtesy of George Hallett Research Collection

We know that they are melting, never to return. We know that they are so intrinsic to Icelandic culture that there is grief around their loss; a funeral was held for Okjokull, Iceland’s first glacier to disappear, and which once covered six square miles of deep ice.  

“Exploring the work of ChihChung Chang is to better understand the slippage between stories we think we know and those as experienced by living, breathing places – and the communities calling them home.” Mike Pinnington digs into the artist and cultural researcher’s multi-site contribution to Liverpool Biennial 2025…

On the site of a former Chinese boarding house in Liverpool’s Great George Square there is a blue plaque commemorating the contribution to the city’s history by Chinese seafarers forcibly deported from the city in 1946. A shameful, underexposed chapter in the UK’s post-Second World War history, the policy separated thousands of seafarers from their families. That its unveiling, coming in July 2024, is so recent speaks to the complex, disproportionate relationship between Britain, this city, and the oldest Chinese community in Europe.

As if to reflect this complexity, there are many strands to Taiwanese artist and cultural researcher ChihChung Chang’s multi-site Liverpool Biennial contribution. To engage with the fruits of Chang’s research is not unlike prying off the thin though stubborn façade of place to get to the real, human stories beneath; at other times, it is more akin to setting forth on a voyage of discovery. Exploring the work of this cultural cartographer is to better understand the slippage between stories we think we know and those as experienced by living, breathing places – and the communities calling them home.

Across a satisfying multi-disciplinary installation at city centre venue, Bluecoat, an outside companion piece situated in Liverpool’s China Town, and a film in the nearby Pine Court Housing Association, the works speak to interwoven threads, allusions and tensions to unpick, consider and address. They each tell a part of the story in and of themselves, but – as with much of this Biennial – it is best to think of them as constituent parts. To experience each complementary aspect as parts of a whole is to see Chang’s research coalesce into a bigger picture.

At Bluecoat, you’ll find narratives of social history that reference family, community, biography, industrial decline, and cultural regeneration via post-modernity. In a Taiwan-set film of cultural histories told in three chapters, various objects relating to shipping (with a model vessel playing the role of anchor work) and a Chinese Arch come together to form Port of Fata Morgana. It situates art as both tribute – to home and family – and a self-portrait of sorts. This is the stuff of the artist’s life – the place, upbringing and people that have influenced him, one way or another, and inspired the research that lead him here.

Pushing beyond those initial, substantial layers, Port of Fata Morgana (named for the mutable, inconsistent nature of once bustling port cities) instigates a process of identifying and interrogating the commonalities and differences shared by communities separated by language, history and thousands of miles (6,199 if we’re counting). Here, Chang bridges historical, cultural and geographic gaps, by putting his home of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan in conversation with Liverpool, his artworks’ temporary home.

A multitude of resonances have surfaced in the process. Both Kaohsiung and Liverpool are declining port cities, whose busiest, most profitable shipping days are behind them; they have each been rejuvenated of late, through necessity, by a belief in and commitment to culture as a driving force. These resonances initiate a departure point from which we can dig deeper, and consider the impact on people and places when surroundings and their meaning shifts – planned or otherwise – and vice versa. What does it mean for a place to become a microcosm for a changing world?

A work which gets to the heart of how the warp and weft of place and communities – especially ports – might be felt, is Keystone (2025), a collaboratively made paper mural found in Liverpool’s China Town (on Grenville Street South). Depicting a Chinese Arch, its title responds directly to the BEDROCK theme of Liverpool Biennial; an architectural keystone is structurally crucial. But it might also speak to and acknowledge the strength and diversity within the community it reflects, and the components that make powerful meaning within it.

With facilitation from Liverpool’s Pagoda Arts, whose mission it is ‘to introduce Chinese Culture to a wide and diverse community’, Keystone – artwork as connective tissue – is the manifestation of workshops in which residents were invited to share their stories of and relationships to Liverpool. Sparking these stories, participants were asked to bring along a meaningful object that they felt was important to them and their place in the city, from which they made rubbings in charcoal.

In an accompanying film of these workshops showing at Pine Court, it is clear that its contributors represent a spectrum of ages and backgrounds. Keystone, then, is both representation and in recognition of different generations of people who have helped develop this particular ongoing volume of the story of a city. In it, you can see images of items, text and people’s signatures, along with the artist’s own rubbings. You can pick out Mersey Docks signage; a plaque commemorating David Lewis, department store founder; and Liver Birds standing in for the traditional Chinese dragon – a creature representing power, prosperity and good luck. Taken from across the city, these rubbings link China Town’s communities and heritage to Liverpool at large, as opposed to the limitations of a specific setting.

A cross-section of the culture and society of which they are all part, this isn’t a picture or representation of any one unified story. Nor, I don’t think, is it meant to be. Instead it establishes a place for the many interweaving lives and narratives from the diaspora to be told. Memories, emotions, dreams of the city – these are literal imprints of the community embedded in Liverpool’s urban and psychological landscape.

Rendered in simple monochrome it may be, but Keystone is nothing less than a visualisation of the belonging and adding to that takes place therein, one layer of sediment atop another. It is a living rather than fixed monument, in a way that even the grandeur of the 44ft Imperial Arch that marks the gateway to China Town – a gift from Shanghai to celebrate the twinning of  the cities 25 years ago – can’t be.          

Mike Pinnington

Liverpool Biennial 2025: BEDROCK continues until 14 September at various venues across the city

Images, from top: ChihChung Chang, ‘Keystone’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025. Photography by Rob Battersby; ChihChung Chang 張致中, ‘Port of Fata Morgana’, 2024. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Bluecoat. Photography by Mark McNulty; ChihChung Chang, ‘Keystone’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025. Photography by Rob Battersby 

Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…

Monday – Exhibition Continues: Haunted Paper @ Dorothy, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool – FREE

Hot on the heels of author Jeff Young’s winning of the TLS Ackerley Prize for memoir, Wild Twin, comes this exhibition of collage and notebooks made during and to inspire its writing. Very much artworks in their own right, Young sees them as: “An archive of fleeting moments captured before they fade away.” They’re every bit as poetic and evocative as that sounds.

Further Reading: Sacred & Profane: Jeff Young’s Haunted Paper

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.

Further Reading: Another Dimension – On Contemporary Drawing; Caroline Gorick: After Hours – Reviewed

Tuesday – Brigitte Jurack: Rising Darkness, Floor Mosaic Workshops 1pm @ the Victoria Gallery & Museum –  FREE

During Rising Darkness, an exhibition exploring current affairs, literature, landscape and history, artist Brigitte Jurack has been leading workshops in making a co-created mosaic. Inspired by a floor found in a Roman villa, and updated to address some of the exhibition’s themes, this is the second-to-last opportunity to have a hand in the new work.

Wednesday – Exhibition Opening: The CASS Artists in Residence & Exhibition –  FREE

Accessible on foot from West Kirby, Hilbre Island has something of the magical, even folkloric, about it. As such, it is a seductive setting for art, artists and the wider public. This new group exhibition (which runs until Sunday) highlights the work of the CASS Centre for Art, Science, Sustainability, which foregrounds collaboration and exploration around the locale.

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.

Friday – The French Connection 8.30pm @ FACT, Liverpool — £9.35

William Friedkin’s classic, a winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor, sees Gene Hackman as NY detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle steal the show. He and his partner, Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider), are on narcotics detail, tailing heroin smugglers Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco) and his wife, Angie (Arlene Faber). Grimy realism, superb acting and a knock-out, high speed car chase combine to keep this in some ways of its time thriller feeling fresh.

Saturday – Bidston Observatory Open Days 1/2/3pm @ Bidston Observatory, Birkenhead – £5/£2

Built in 1866, in-part, to establish the ‘exact time,’ today the wonderful Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre operates as a ‘self-organising study site for research, communality and experimentation’. Whether interested in its history, as an affordable place to contemplate and conduct your own research, or both, take a look around this weekend for free.

Further Reading: Field Trip: Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre – Bringing Forth Other Worlds

Last Chance to See: REITERATIONS: The Royal Standard Studio Members Exhibition / The Royal Standard Studio Open Day –  FREE

Your last chance to see this group exhibition considering 19 years of The Royal Standard, reflecting on the practice, process – and sustainability – of such spaces. While you’re there, you can check out more of what’s going on at the artist-led studios’ open day.

Further Reading: Back in 2016, C. James Fagan considered a decade of The Royal Standard, considering the many challenges and far-reaching achievements of the artist-led studios and gallery 

Sunday – Lynchspirations: Experiment in Terror 5pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

Continuing the year-long exploration and celebration of director, David Lynch (who died in January), this 1962 neo-noir directed by Blake Edwards sees Ross Martin’s sadistic crim, Garland “Red” Lynch, terrorise Lee Remick’s bank teller Kelly Sherwood. Glenn Ford’s FBI man, John “Rip” Ripley, is on the case.

Mike Pinnington

Images/media, from top: Experiment in Terror trailer; Jeff Young film still, courtesy Matt Bell; Brigitte Jurack, install photography, VGM; The French Connection trailer; Bidston Observatory, courtesy Mathilde Grandjean; Northern Lights, situated in Cains Brewery Village, Liverpool. Image courtesy Pete Carr, 2018

On the eve of a new Liverpool exhibition, showcasing the notebooks and collages of 2025 TLS Ackerley Prize-winning author Jeff Young, Mike Pinnington considers memory, nostalgia, and the writer’s creative process… 

In Yoko Ogawa’s allegorical The Memory Police, things – birds, calendars, maps – are arbitrarily ‘disappeared’ from the collective memory, fascistically stripped of meaning; in Apple TV’s Silo, objects from a ‘before time’ (including a Pez dispenser) are designated as relics, and forbidden; Georgi Gospodinov’s satire, Time Shelter, revolves around ‘clinics for the past’ as a method of treatment for those with Alzheimer’s. These prove so successful as to precipitate a ‘referendum of the past’ in which European countries opt to vote for a bygone decade they want to recreate and live in.

Truth often proves to be stranger than fiction: after Franco’s death in Spain in 1975, a Pact of Forgetting was proposed as a means of moving beyond the painful legacies of the Civil War. But memory is a powerful thing. Both sacred and profane, the past – like it or not – tears through the years and decades. Inevitably it catches up with us, and remains present. It shapes our world view, the way we think and, to some extent, act.

Frequently, objects – as both Ogawa and Gospodinov demonstrate – are the locus of remembrance, voluntary or otherwise. Like the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, some things (they needn’t be cakes!), are imbued with evocative, mysterious properties, and can flood us with memories and feelings long forgotten, or thought buried. They suggest, provoke, exhume and resuscitate; conjuring time, place and feelings, they are infused with a kind of magic.

The writing of author and playwright Jeff Young has been known to have much the same effect. The worlds he invokes feel so close as to brush up against us. Ghost Town – his alt. city symphony shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography award – builds a picture of Liverpool as “a living thing”, as he calls it, so successfully that you feel you could open the book and step onto the city’s streets, walk in his footsteps; maybe even grab a coffee with him. Certain of its passages prick your eyes and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention. “I had the feeling – still have the feeling – that the city was a living novel and we were walking through its pages.”

His most recent act of writing time and place into fresh existence is 2024′s Wild Twin, for which Young has just been awarded the 2025 TLS Ackerley Prize for literary autobiography ‘of outstanding merit’. Here, as it inextricably must be, memory is closely entwined with nostalgia:

“I began to dream of places I had been to and could no longer go. And so I went to where I always go, into the shadowplay of memory where I might find an echo, a reflection, the wild twin that always runs on ahead over the edge, into the beyond.”

As we know, there is peril in nostalgia. It is tempting, seductive. It is a kind of warping as much as it is a yearning. What do we want? Who do we want? A younger, more vital and fearless version of ourselves? Had that person ever really existed? Are we remembering right? Sometimes, we can haunt ourselves. For Young, though, it seems nostalgia isn’t something to be wary of. This isn’t a place to wallow and hide, shutting out the world, denying the present and hope of a future like a latter day Miss Haversham, or a reclusive, gone-to-seed rock star well past their prime. It is neither a cul-de-sac, nor simple aide-memoire; it is a creative provocation.

From it, Young excavates friends and lovers, old haunts, music shops, films, paperbacks, architecture, family gatherings, misadventures – the stuff of life that we all must accumulate to become ourselves – to produce something vibrant and alive in the here and now. Most obviously, this comes in the form of his lyrical, richly textured writing, which arrives with such warmth, and so fully realised, as to put us in the city, bar or living room he has reached back through time to vividly recall and present afresh.

The kindling for these works is provided in no small part by notebooks kept by Young, but also by companion collage and assemblage. Collectively, he describes these three-dimensional artefacts as ‘imagination batteries’, helping to invigorate, and provide the impetus and drive for the writing process. ”I see them as magic spells,” he has said. “An archive of fleeting moments captured before they fade away. They summon up ghosts, language, images, memories, ideas, incantations, hexes, ritual alchemy.” What he might not say, however, is that these are works of art in their own right, that beautifully complement the books they helped inspire him to write.

Two such collages adorn the pages of Wild Twin, a book dedicated to his dad, Cyril, who had died in 2023. Unvarnished, Young writes on this in the book’s final chapter. He writes also about these works that amount, in some ways, to family portraits; absences very much present in the “vessels [that] would act as time machines, as portals to the past” built while his dad slept.

As rich with meaning and suggestion as his writing, these accumulations plucked from life’s flotsam and jetsam, include: “Thimbles, foreign coins, medals, brooches, holiday snaps, acorns, pebbles, seashells, door keys, lucky charms, earrings, lace handkerchiefs, spoons, poems, cigarette and tea cards, the broken heads of dolls, marbles, cufflinks, dried flowers, corks, buttons, chess pieces, teeth.”

Channelling, he says, Joseph Cornell’s boxes, “In tobacco tins and cigar tins I curated memories.” And, he explains: “I thought of memory as being in the present moment, rather than in the mists of whatever ‘The Past’ is. I imagined my tiny museums and tobacco tin machines were living engines of today and tomorrow as much as they were reminders of the past.”

Maybe this is the best way to think about memory – and its own wild twin, nostalgia – as much the driver of the present- and future-tense as it is a place to wistfully visit on occasion, lest we get pulled down by the undertow.

Mike Pinnington

Dorothy X Jeff Young: Haunted Paper previews 6 August, from 5pm @ Dorothy, Jamaica Street, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool

Read Ghost Town: A Liverpool Shadowplay – A Conversation with Jeff Young

Images, from top: Film still, courtesy Matt Bell; Ghost Town; Wild Twin Collage, by Jeff Young; film stills, courtesy Matt Bell

Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…

Monday – 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.

Further Reading: Another Dimension – On Contemporary Drawing; Caroline Gorick: After Hours – Reviewed

Exhibition Opening: Non-Stop Destruction 6pm @ Birch Studios, Hamilton Square, Birkenhead – FREE

Artists Ruth Dillon, Jill Eastland, Thomas Eastland, Idit Nathan & Sarah Wood come together for this group exhibition examining the continuing assault on Gaza and its people. Considering the erasure of a culture through the ‘disappearance of memories, relatives and neighbours’ – not to mention the homes which previously housed them – Non-Stop Destruction asks and responds to questions including: How can we create art in a genocide? And how can artists respond to the ongoing destruction of Palestine and the decimation of its people?’

Tuesday – Moonchild Sanelly 8pm @ District, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool – £15

She’s guested on Beyoncé and Gorillaz tracks, but the time has well and truly come for South African rapper, Moonchild Sanelly, to step out of the shadows. New album, Full Moon, released earlier this year to glowing reviews, sees her take centre-stage.

Wednesday – Exhibition Opening: Haunted Paper 5pm @ Dorothy, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool – FREE

Hot on the heels of author and all-round renaissance man, Jeff Young’s winning of the TLS Ackerley Prize for memoir, Wild Twin, comes this exhibition of his collages (pictured, top) and notebooks, which he calls ‘energy batteries’ to aid the writing process. Artworks in their own right, however, Young says: “I see them as magic spells. An archive of fleeting moments captured before they fade away. They summon up ghosts, language, images, memories, ideas, incantations, hexes, ritual alchemy.”

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.

Friday – Exhibition Opening: REITERATIONS: The Royal Standard Studio Members Exhibition – FREE 

Group exhibition considering 19 years of the storied artist-led studio and gallery, reflecting on the practice, process – and sustainability – of such spaces.

Saturday – Exhibition Opening: INSIDE//OUT 1pm @ Bridewell Studios & Gallery – FREE

Visitors to Bridewell’s recent Drawing (Paper) Show may well have got an early preview to Gareth Kemp exhibition, INSIDE//OUT, in the form of large-scale outdoor abstract mural in the studios’ courtyard, Sculptural Forms in a Liminal Space. This afternoon sees the official unveiling, alongside an exhibition of related works by the artist.

Further Reading: Monument Exhibition Review; Light Sensitive Area Ahead – Reviewed

Dylyfu Fest: Gruff Rhys All-Dayer from 2pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £25

Gruff Rhys has always been around, it seems. From the heady 90s days of his rabble-rousing band, Super Furry Animals, to last year’s latest solo effort Sadness Sets Me Free and forthcoming Welsh language LP, Dim Probs (above), Rhys has maintained an incredible standard of output – via the odd bit of genre experimentation and tweak here and there – for more than three decades. This weekend sees him headline this Anglo-Welsh all-dayer, supported by British Birds, Pys Melyn, Gintis, Georgia Ruth, Zara Smile, and Trial Tapes.

Sunday – Last Chance to See: Amartey Golding @ FACT Liverpool – FREE  

Amartey Golding’s work addresses masculinity, nationhood, vulnerability and violence; themes, he has, for the last two years, explored with men at Fazakerley’s HMP Altcourse. Together, they created Silent Knight, a suit of armour that is the latest piece in the artist’s Chainmail series. Both reflection on the tools men use to navigate life and, created over hundreds of hours, time spent that can never be reclaimed, today is your last chance to experience the installation.

VH-YES! 1pm @ VideOdyssey, Toxteth, Liverpool – FREE with mailing list sign-up (Booking Essential) 

Promising ‘outlandish, nostalgic film fun in your local video store’, this new, free film club – whose thing, as the winning name suggests, is a wholehearted and wholesome commitment to analogue – gets underway this Sunday. With screenings kept secret, expect the programme to contain ‘nostalgic treats, B-movies and horror gems galore’. Sounds fab! Please note: this event is ticketed: sign-up to the VH-YES! mailing list essential (no walk-ups, guys).

Mike Pinnington

Image credits from top: Collage from Wild Twin by Jeff Young, 2024. Sanelisiwe Twisha – aka Moonchild Sanelly. Courtesy the artist. Gruff Rhys’ ninth album Dim Probs (No Probs), 2025. VH-YES!: secret film club, hosted by VideOdyssey 

“Drawing deserves our consideration and attention. It always did.” Mike Pinnington on the ongoing elevation of a medium… 

Drawing. It’s something we all do, until we don’t. When asked, all too early, to put aside so-called childish things – fairy tales, toys, play in general – art, and often drawing specifically, goes with them. It is the sensible few that continue beyond the age such things are thought reasonable. As we get older, of course, a few realise that, in jettisoning such things, something important was lost, and so trickle back to pencil and paper for the pure enjoyment of it. Or, as we might put it today, mindfulness.

Perhaps this universality of experience – drawing as something we all share in childhood – and the idea of it as a hobby, is why it has been so long thought of as ‘less than’ painting, sculpture, and other mediums. That, and the fact it is also seen, even or especially within the art sector, as preliminary, preparatory – merely a step along the way to what might become the ‘actual’ finished artwork. Even when drawing, in one form or another, is the intended end point, it has to be given a specific collective artsy term to elevate the results; so, we call them works on paper.

But, recent years have seen drawing promoted, its status raised from a secondary, supporting role, to that of primary medium in and of itself. This is due, perhaps, to a number of circumstances: people picking up pencil and sketchbook (either for the first time, or first time in years) during the lockdowns; or it being a symptom of the post-internet age, a reconnection with more tactile, analogue methods – and a growing malaise, even unease with, digital platforms. As noted by Ed Krčma, “art historian Michael Newman suggests [that] the meaning of drawing’s specific qualities is conditioned by the field of other visual technologies with which it shares a space at any one time.”

For all of these reasons and less quantifiable ones, it can be said that drawing, one of the oldest forms of artistic expression, is having a prolonged moment. This has been evidenced by a marked upturn in discussion of the medium, manifested by major publications and exhibitions dedicated to its immediacy, versatility, and the sheer freedom of expression it allows. One such notable champion, called Drawing Paper, emerged in Liverpool in 2010. Created by artists Mike Carney and Jon Barraclough, it has proved a much-loved space for drawing in all its forms, and has sprouted an occasional exhibiting element, The Drawing (Paper) Show.

Barraclough remains involved. Joined by Colette Lilley and Sarah Jane Richards, this year has seen the Drawing Paper publish its 10th edition (alongside a parallel exhibition as part of the Independents Biennial). Selected and curated by Barraclough, Lilley, Richards, and guest Curtis Holder, its pages represent an impressively wide and sometimes surprising variety of work by more than 50 artists. It makes for an eloquent demonstration of the medium’s flexibility, and the possibility for innovation it – perhaps uniquely – offers.

From the resolutely traditional to what we might call expanded understandings of drawing – and everything in between – it provides an international insight into its state and status today. Simultaneously, it challenges the viewer to question what can be categorised as drawing.

Reassuringly, traditional landscape and portraiture figure. Yuxuan Hou’s Keston Ponds (2024) richly renders the lakes of Keston Common in graphite on paper. The haunting ruin of a territory depicted in Chris Shaw Hughes’ Gaza – Welcome Home (2025), speaks for itself, and demonstrates drawing’s aptitude for widescreen, coruscating reportage. Emotionally charged portraits by Kaye Hodges (The Rejection Letter, 2025) and Cristina Celestini (Metamorphosis (dreaming after Veronese) 2025), capture their sitters so that we might assume they had been made in another era altogether (even as the mood of the latter’s subject subtly transitions in echoes across the picture plane).

If Belinda Yee’s striking Graphic Profile (fold 1, 2023), looks as though it harks back to the peak Op-Art of Bridget Riley, it is in fact a kind of portrait itself, made, says the artist, “by tracing rock faces around Sydney Harbour and using those profile lines as templates.” A meditation on deep time and the body – Yee uses her own breaths to guide her mark-making – it takes us way beyond the dimensions of the folded paper on which it is presented.

Now firmly in expanded drawing territory, Kelly Cumberland takes us further still, with Helix Silicium v0.1 (2025). Made with etched silicone rubber and looking like a warped ship’s propellor, suspended from the ceiling in a gallery setting, it introduces a third dimension to proceedings, pushing drawing firmly into kinetic sculpture territory.

If such works ask whether or not we can think of them as ‘drawings’ at all, the inclusion of Caroline Gorick’s Evening Light (2024), made using oil paint, may prove a bridge too far for some. In a recent review of Gorick’s exhibition, After Hours, which featured this very work, I never once used the term drawing. Time and again, I referred to this and other works in the show as paintings. And, yet, here it is. This brilliant small-scale work – be it drawing, painting, or both(?) – adds a frisson of controversy to Drawing Paper 10. A talking point among many others.

But let us not get too hung up on such things – we’re in the realms of contemporary art after all. We’re meant to disagree occasionally. What I think we can agree on, however, as demonstrated by the artists mentioned here, and many others besides, is that drawing deserves our consideration and attention. It always did.

Mike Pinnington

A full list of Drawing Paper 2025 artists can be found here; Drawing (Paper) Show 2025 was on display at Bridewell Studios & Gallery 11 July – 31 July, 2025

Images, from top: Gaza – Welcome Home (2025), Chris Shaw Hughes; Drawing Paper #1; The Rejection Letter (2025), Kaye Hodges; Graphic Profile (fold 1, 2023), Belinda Yee; Evening Light (2024), Caroline Gorick. All works courtesy the artists and Drawing(Paper)Show 25 

Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from across Liverpool and beyond…

Monday – 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 (below).

Last Chance to See: The Drawing (Paper) Show 2025 @ The Bridewell Studios & Gallery – FREE

Drawing – so often seen merely as a preliminary step before getting down to the ‘real’ work of making 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, running until 31 July, both challenges our expectations of and celebrates the medium. Artists in the exhibition (including familiar names Caroline Gorick, Penny Davenport and Tomo) also appear in Drawing Paper, marking the publication’s 10th edition.

Barry Lyndon 3.40pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

“The extent to which Stanley Kubrick cared about producing quality films is made manifest in every frame of Barry Lyndon.” So said Rodney Hill in his essay on the film for Taschen’s excellent The Stanley Kubrick Archives. Something of an outlier in Kubrick’s oeuvre, Barry Lyndon (based on an 1844 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray and back in cinemas to mark its 50th anniversary) follows the rise and fall of farm boy and ne’er do well, Redmond Barry, via duels, the Seven Years’ War and espionage.

The Matrix 7.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

Tuesday – The Beaches of Agnès 8pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

Autobiographical essay film from the late, great Agnès Varda (1928–2019). Looking back over her life, the then octogenarian Varda employs footage from her richly textured back catalogue to punctuate and illustrate her story. We’re lucky to be able to join her.

Further Reading: The Big Interview: Agnès Varda 

Wednesday – Exhibition Continues: Broken Grey Wires: Who Wants Flowers When They are Dead? 6pm @ Williamson Art Gallery and Museum – FREE

One of the true universals of life is the inevitability of death – yours, mine, and everyone we will ever know. And, yet, almost as universal is the difficulty with which we find thinking and talking about the subject. As with so much else, it is left to art to help make sense of it. This new group exhibition is such an attempt. Exploring grief, loss, identity and community, Who Wants Flowers When They are Dead brings together works by more than a dozen artists to ‘offer a space to reflect, connect, and begin processing experiences of loss’. Includes work by Candy Chang, Ana Mendieta, Lizz Brady and more.

Thursday – The War of the Worlds 1.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

It is 130 years since the first publication of H.G. Wells’ source material, and this 1953 adaptation was the first to bring the marauding aliens from Mars to the big screen. A questioning of the validity of ongoing British colonialism wrapped in a brilliant story, it is more than simply ‘scientific romance’ as Wells termed his output; a box office success, Byron Haskin’s cinematic outing, including some great special effects, does it justice.

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.

Friday – Last Chance to See: Dorothy X Hot Grls Watch Sports: EURO SUMMER @ Dorothy, Baltic Triangle, Liverpool – FREE

On the back of another international triumph for the Lionesses, this exhibition – a celebration and also questioning of how far the women’s game has come – feels like required viewing. Curated by Hot Grls Watch Sports founder Nali Simukulwa, it features photography and more from Caitlin Marie Sullivan, Jacqui McAssey (GIRLFANS), Ufuoma Art, and Simukulwa.

Jules et Jim 6pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

The famed 1962 love triangle drama, Jules et Jim, stars Henri Serre and Oskar Werner as the titular lifelong friends, each besotted with Jeanne Moreau’s Catherine. More an analysis of the complexities of love and friendship than traditional romance, and as tragic as it is effervescent, the iconic film is, perhaps not, the date movie people might imagine.

Saturday – Pulled Apart By Horses Loserpalooza IV 1pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £20

Two stages and nine bands make up Loserpalooza IV, Society of Losers’ all-dayer headlined by shouty alt-rock from Leeds’ Pulled Apart by Horses. They’re joined by, among others, local punks Crapsons, feminist alt-punk from Two Tonne Machete, and Riot Grrrl-inflected grunge from Petrichor.

Sunday – Exhibition: (M)other Collective: (M)other Wild: artists working across the island from 10am, Hilbre Island – FREE

Accessible on foot from West Kirby, Hilbre Island has something of the magical, even folkloric, about it. As such, it is a seductive setting for art, artists and the wider public. This new exhibition from (M)other Collective makes good use of this context, with a series of outdoor works exploring ‘the balance of natural life cycles endangered by modern society’.

Common Thread 1pm @ Birch Studios, Hamilton Square, Birkenhead – FREE

Workshop focused on making, mending and community building in the face of fast fashion. Held at artist-led Birch Studios, who are in the middle of an incredible show a week run during the Independents Biennial.

Mike Pinnington

Images/media, from top: The Matrix trailer; Brigitte Jurack, install photography, VGM; The Beaches of Agnès Varda trailer; BEDROCK/Liverpool Biennial; Jules et Jim trailer; Pulled Apart by Horses 

Continuing a run of superb exhibitions, Mostyn Gallery in Llandudno hosts Jeremy Deller’s ode to Welsh culture. Laura Robertson finds echoes of and reverie in many versions of the past, a playful and critical tribute to art and selfhood…

Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream? ‘Carreg Ateb’, translated from the Welsh for answering stone, or echo stone; a rock to cause a call to action, or a reverie, as the phase suggests? An echo, a solution, or a firm resolution? The original Carreg Ateb is a capstone from a prehistoric burial chamber, situated on the Pembrokeshire coast, which the local Abbott would strike in order to bless fishing boats going out to sea, and to protect those souls going out to dangerous work, wild weather, and for the unknowable catch.

The title of Jeremy Deller’s new exhibition at Mostyn Gallery in North Wales throws up a barrage of thoughts before you even cross the threshold. The exhibition title is immortalised in a patchwork banner by Deller’s long-term collaborator, Ed Hall, who’s been making trade union campaign and exhibition banners with the artist for 25 years. The political tone of Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream? points, in a fittingly dreamlike way, to Welsh culture today and yesterday, and the repair of culture after a slow, insidious oppression by English power or powers.

The show is a gentle drip-drip of these ideas. As usual, Mostyn Gallerys’s natural light and vaulted ceilings make for a space that allows art to breathe, crucial in allowing visitors to observe craft pieces, heirlooms, artefacts, and new work by young Welsh artists that poke and prod at what the artistic self might mean, given the tools, materials and subject matter specific to nation.

Here are many objects that rouse curiosity and awe: including Astronomical Slates (1837) carved by brothers Thomas and William Jones, of Bryn Twrw, Tregarth, quarrymen and farmers: the cosmos and its meanings depicted with tremendous care on a material prone to shatter. A decorated horse jaw, originally and accidently unearthed by Thomas Kendrick as he was digging in his garden on the Great Orme cliffs (1880); Kendrick’s cave, as it came to be known, contained the jaw as well as flint, bear teeth, and human bones, believed to be from the Upper Paleolithic era. The famous Wrexham Tailor’s Quilt by James Williams (1842-1852): 4,525 pieces of felted woollens and military uniforms, meticulously sewn offcuts depicting an array of Biblical stories, including Adam with exotic animals in the Garden of Eden, and Jonah and the Whale.

Here, also, are very recent stories: a film installation with poster, Llwyfan Beca (2025) by Esyllt Angharad Lewis, or Beca’s Stage, portraying a young girl in cockle bonnet and dress, performing the past, alongside other schoolchildren. The poster reads ‘Cyfiiawnder a charwyr cyfiawnder ydym ni oll’, meaning, Justice and the lovers (holders) of justice we all are; alluding to the Justice and the Lovers tarot cards, a combination that indicates clarity, honesty and self-discovery. Lewis Prosser’s buff willow baskets, mace, urns and collars (2025) are another unexpected way of channelling historic procession; civic regalia for today made with a skill he taught himself in Lockdown. At first glance, they could be on loan from local museums and collections.

Later, Prosser’s wicker costumes, and those by artist and filmmaker Edith Morris, are worn by local children from the Frân Wen theatre company in a carnival-esque march along the promenade and through the streets – little legs dance underneath uncanny giant basket heads, and little heads shake fringed animal masks, to the beat of a brass band playing Daft Punk.

In opposition, there are items on display that rouse and shame: a Welsh Not wooden board, a tool of punishment and humiliation, hung around schoolchildren’s necks if caught speaking Welsh; old school books of British history rooted in Crown and Empire, where the Welsh ‘people belong to a different race from the English’; Ian Campbell’s appliqué banner, asking ‘A OES HEDDWCH?’, Is there peace?

Strangeness and joy connect performance to exhibit. Deller’s Folk Archives show raves in the mines, the ribboned horse-head of Mari Lwyd riding in a taxi, and, again unexpectedly, his collection of fan art about Caerphilly’s best rock band, Manic Street Preachers. Relationships emerge with broader legends, as in Manod quarry, which housed the nation’s art during WW2 on Churchill’s insistence, and whose archives were inspiration for this show; in Welsh mythology, The Mabinogion, and in the in-between realms; to Bryn Celli Ddu Burial Chamber on the Welsh island of Anglesey, which we visited the next day to see Frân Wen continue their revelry for the summer solstice. In the driving rain, children bounce up and down the burial mound, singing, arms reaching to the sky, welcoming the return of light to the land.

It is a complex and hypnotic version of the Carreg Ateb, or answering stone, that is presented, if you are open to receive it. Truth is underlined by folklore. The show builds layers of meaning until the tensions of old and new, of pretence and play, reach a climax; echoes of a sort, of mismatched expectations, of what the Welsh culture actually is in the minds of the Welsh, as opposed to the English, who have historically corralled them into the social and cultural categories of ‘other’.

Laura Robertson

See the exhibition Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream? at Mostyn, Llandudno, until 27 September 2025 – free entry

Presented by Mostyn and Frân Wen’s Young Company as part of a celebration commission curated by Jeremy Deller to celebrate The National Gallery’s bicentenary. With Storiel Bangor, Llandudno Museum, the CARN network, and Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service

See live performances, The Triumph of Art: A free party in Trafalgar Square, 11am-4pm, Saturday 26 July in London’s Trafalgar Square

Image credits: installation shots by Rob Battersby; live performance shots by Mark McNulty. 2025. With thanks