“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

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 

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.

Tuesday – Directing Difference: RAWD Double Bill – £6

For more than a decade, RAWD (Random Acts of Wildness Disability) have supported, foregrounded and championed access to creativity for those with disabilities. This double-header of films from first-time directors, Sam Hooper and Alana Wadkin, marks their launch as a registered charity, and coincides with Disability Pride Month.

The Red Shoes 7.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

Filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced an astonishing body of work, including three of my all time favourites – A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and 1948′s The Red Shoes. A tale of love, jealousy, obsession, and more besides, the duo’s tribute to the world of dance – and reflection on ambition – capped an incredible three years for their partnership.

Wednesday – Barry Lyndon 7pm @ 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.

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.

Exhibition Opening: 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 (above), Ana Mendieta, Lizz Brady and more.

Friday – Aroma Cantonese Opera Troupe: Participatory Performance 1pm @ Pine Court, Liverpool – FREE

Part of Liverpool Biennial, artist and curator Karen Tam’s China Town-set Scent of Thunderbolts (2024), takes inspiration from Cantonese opera to provide the space for a community’s sonic memory. Manchester-based collective, Aroma Cantonese Opera Troupe, respond to Tam’s installation with this participatory performance highlighting and celebrating cultural heritage.

Saturday – Dear Othermother: Letter Writing Workshops with Amber Akaunu and Azena Baxter 1pm @ the Bluecoat, Liverpool – FREE

One of the most affecting works of Liverpool Biennial is Amber Akaunu’s touching and profound Dear Othermother, a film acknowledging and dedicated to deep bonds made beyond the family unit. This letter writing workshop inspired by the film and its themes opens a space for reflection around ‘othermothers’ in our lives.

Sunday – Walking Tour with Amayna Caceres and Andrea Ku 11am @ 20 Jordan Street, Liverpool – FREE

Join Liverpool Biennial 2025 artist Amayna Caceres and socially engaged ‘artist in disguise as a beekeeper, gardener and teacher,’ Andrea Ku, for this walk taking in Caceres’s 20 Jordan Street work, as well as green spaces nearby.

Do the Right Thing 1.15pm @ FACT Liverpool  – £9.35

Did Mookie Do the Right Thing? I first saw Spike Lee’s 1989 film at uni. It was pretty formative. As well as the movie itself, I’ve never forgotten that our lecturer remarked that it was only ever white audience members who questioned the “right thing” of the title in a film that vividly explores rising racial tensions against the backdrop of a sweltering Brooklyn neighbourhood. Lee finally won his first Oscar (Best Adapted Screenplay, BlacKkKlansman) thirty years after the movie that he’s arguably best known for; many, myself included, would question its coming so late.

Chloe Foy 7.30pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £12.50

Headlined by Chloe Foy (whose 2021 debut, Where Shall We Begin, garnered a slew of glowing reviews), this folk-filled line-up in Future Yard’s Garden screams hazy, halcyon summer evenings. Foy is joined on the night by Rachael Jean Harris, Grace Elizabeth Harvey, Maddie Lara & Catherine Bullock.

Mike Pinnington

Images/media, from top: The Red Shoes film still; Independents Biennial, The Old Fire Station; Barry Lyndon trailer; © Candy Chang, photo by Ahmed Alameri; Karen Tam 譚嘉文, ‘Scent of Thunderbolts 雷霆之息’, 2024. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at Pine Court. Photography by Stuart Whipps; Do The Right Thing trailer 

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’.

Read our LAAF 2025 preview

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.

Read Our Review   

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 

The latest Liverpool Arab Arts Festival arrives this Friday. Here, Mike Pinnington takes a trip through some of 2025′s not-to-be-missed highlights…

Just like that, we’re well into July, and Liverpool’s cultural calendar continues to unfold correspondingly, with Friday’s launch of LAAF 2025. Across performance, art, music, community, literature and workshops, this year’s iteration of the UK’s longest-running annual Arab arts and culture festival addresses the thorny topic of nostalgia.

Should you have dipped a toe – or dived enthusiastically – into the Biennial (which opened last month), you’ll likely have visited its Walker Art Gallery offering. There, the catalogue tells us, we’ll find ‘densely material works which interweave practices exploring personal and colonial legacies within an ornate building and national collection founded on the merchant wealth of the city’.

Included in its display is Nour Bishouty (whose heritage encompasses Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Canada), one of a trio of artists forming this year’s LAAF visual arts strand. Bishouty’s constellation of works, collectively titled Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had, has, at its centre, Al-Wadi (top), an artwork depicting a Bedouin tribe in Jordan.

Made by the artist’s father, Ghassan, it is the departure point for a wider, thoughtful installation, which includes carvings of animals, a beautiful photo-collage, and textiles – all of which speak to lives lived in the shadow of cultural and practical erasure. Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had, feels especially poignant against the current geopolitical backdrop.

At the World Museum is British-Iraqi visual artist and culture worker, Sarah al Sarraj’s time-collapsing work, Limbs of the Lunar Disc: Isthmus Ancient River. In a practice embracing painting, comics, and game engines, Al Sarraj reflects on the imperial violence at the root of the world as we know it, leaning into, instead, land, spirit, and ancestry to explore, reimagine and propose alternative realities.

In her new video work, Limbs of the Lunar Disc: Isthmus Ancient River, the artist invites us to ‘follow a [far future] Ancestor on a journey down the river of time’. Allowing for a more critical perspective on our place in – and impact on – the world, history, and the generations to follow, it will be situated in the museum’s World Cultures Gallery. And if, like us, this kind of speculative world-building is your jam, you can join the artist on Saturday (12 July) for a performance lecture drawing on ‘non-Western conceptions of space and time, incorporating quantum physics, liberation theory, and the work of Black Quantum Futurism and scholar Jackie Wang.’

Completing LAAF’s arts offer is architect, artist, and urban heritage strategist, Mohamed Gohar’s The Alexandrian, based at Yamama Café and Bar on Parliament Street. Ruminating on the evolution of Egypt’s second largest city’s urban and built environment, The Alexandrian considers its rich cultural history to explore a present-day Alexandria ‘facing,’ says Gohar, ‘long-impacting economic, demographic and social challenges.’ For more insight, you can join him for an informal artist talk on 16 July.

Across a packed programme, other highlights dealing with the slippery nature of nostalgia include a night of film (at FACT Liverpool), collectively titled Archiving Nostalgia. Lebanese director Evelyne Hlais’ 2023 short, He Looked At Me, creatively responds to a documentary shot in the aftermath of a massacre relating to her hometown. Considering questions of agency, heritage and authorship, Hlais wanted ‘to create a film with the purpose of gaining “ownership” of the images of my village.’

Also screening is Taqwa Bint Ali x NOWNESS’ 2025 short Memories of a Wedding, framing marriage ceremonies as cultural event, weaving together traditions, ancestry and familial bonds soon – or yet – to be made. ‘Through Memories of a Wedding,’ says the director, ‘I wanted to explore how traditions anchor us, how they keep us connected to our origins, and how they continue to evolve without losing their essence.’

Reflecting on the success of a 1980s Bollywood romance film in Algeria, Amine Hattou’s feature length, Janitou, rounds out the evening. Using the nostalgia for this cinematic sensation as a lens, Hattou ‘explores what love means in today’s Algerian society,’ and ‘the emotional identity of a traumatized generation’.

On 16 July, an evening of readings and discussion (at the Bluecoat) featuring writers Mazen Maarouf, and Anwar Hamed, along with editor, Basma Ghalayini, is inspired by Comma Press’ short story collection, Palestine – 1. Using genre fiction tropes, the publication, a prequel to 2019’s Palestine + 100, collectively looks back from the Nakba of 1948, when more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. Storytelling as eye-opening rallying call, given current events, it takes on an especially crucial, poignant dimension. The first of a pair of Comma Press events, it is followed later in the week with food and readings from the capital of Yemen, with The Book of  Sana’a.

LAAF’s stated aim is to spark ‘informed debate that explores, and increases, appreciation of Arab people and their rich cultures’; with these events and others besides, this 2025 edition seems particularly well-poised to fulfil that mission.

Mike Pinnington

LAAF 2025 launches this Friday. For full listings and details, you can download the festival brochure, here

Images: Nour Bishouty and Ghassan Bishouty, 0°, 0° (1981-83, 2022). Courtesy of Gallery 44 and SAVAC, Toronto Canada. Photography by Darren Rigo; Exhibition Limbs of the Lunar Disc, by Sarah-al-Sarraj, 2025, photography by Devika Bilimoria; Mohamed Gohar, detail, from The Alexandrian series

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

Monday – Mars Express 5.40pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.84

Ostensibly the tale of a notorious hacker and a missing person on 23rd century Mars, with a plot exploring, among other things, brain farms, Jérémie Périn’s sci-fi noir is frequently described as France’s answer to Ghost in the Shell.

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 across Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley and St. Helens, it boasts 22 new commissions of its 64 exhibiting artists. From degree show first-timers to the likes of Rebecca Chesney, Johnny Vegas, and Brigitte Jurack, there’s much to look forward to from this year’s showcase of grassroots art and artists. Check individual venues for opening days/times.

Guitar Wolf 7.30pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £19.60

Elemental rock ‘n’ roll from Japanese icons of the genre. See: Fujiyama Attack!

Tuesday – Hearts of Darkness 5.40 (and Wednesday at 4.45) @ FACT Liverpool– £9.35

Documentary, Hearts of Darkness, chronicles director Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now on- and off-set travails.

Wednesday – Artist Tour: Amartey Golding 6pm @ 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, join Golding today for a guided tour.

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.

Read Our Review   

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.

Exhibition Opening: Drawing (Paper) Show 2025 5.30pm @ 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.

Friday – Opening: LAAF @ Various Venues – £Various

The crucial and always brilliantly programmed Liverpool Arab Arts Fest returns this week, running until 20 July. Including performance, art, music, community events, literature and workshops, this year’s iteration of the UK’s longest-running annual Arab arts and culture festival addresses the thorny topic of nostalgia.

Funny Games 8.45pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

Michael Haneke’s 1997 home invasion horror to rule them all, this genuinely unsettling look at what happens when social mores are out of whack with expectations more than retains the power to shock.

Saturday – Limbs of the Lunar Disc: Break the Clocks 1pm @ World Museum, Liverpool – FREE

Performance lecture from LAAF artist, Sarah al Sarraj, whose new, time-collapsing work, Limbs of the Lunar Disc: Isthmus Ancient River, can be seen at the museum until 20 July.

Sunday – Videodrome 2.30pm @ 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 (played with glee by James Woods) commissions a new type of programme: Videodrome. As the violence, torture and hallucinations get more and more extreme, the signal’s source is finally revealed…

Mike Pinnington

Images/media, from top: Mars Express trailer; Amber Akaunu, Still from ‘Dear Othermother’, 2024. Courtesy of the Artist; Guitar Wolf/Fujiyama Attack; Amartey Golding, Chainmail 4: Silent Knight (2025). Installation view at FACT Liverpool. Photography by Rob Battersby; Drawing (Paper) Show (drawing by M. Lohrum; Funny Games trailer

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

Monday – Exhibitions Continue: @ The Atkinson, Southport – FREE

A trio of shows currently grace Southport’s Atkinson. The Magic of Middle-earth, brings together all manner of creative responses to Tolkien’s opus, including memorabilia, paintings, sculptures, and Lego. Chila Kumari Singh Burman’s I Love You Southport finds the Sefton-born artist showcasing new works; and the gallery’s collection marks its 150th anniversary with a new display bringing together works from the 17th century to the present day. Something for everyone.

From the Archive: Chila Kumari Singh Burman: Merseyside Burman Empire

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 across Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley and St. Helens, it boasts 22 new commissions of its 64 exhibiting artists. From degree show first-timers to the likes of Rebecca Chesney, Johnny Vegas, and Brigitte Jurack, there’s much to look forward to from this year’s showcase of grassroots art and artists. Check individual venues for opening days/times.

Tuesday – Exhibition Continues: Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream? @ Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno – FREE

This major exhibition, commissioned by The National Gallery, takes as its inspiration the hiding of works of art for safekeeping during the Second World War in a disused Snowdonia slate mine. Featuring works and co-curated by Turner Prize-winning artist, Jeremy Deller, Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream? also includes new commissions by early career Welsh artists, Esyllt Angharad Lewis, Gweni Llwyd, Lewis Prosser, Llyr Evans and Sadia Pineda Hameed.

News From Home 5.50pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

When Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was voted Sight & Sound magazine’s greatest film in its 2022 poll, it marked a major shake-up for not just the poll, but also those names synonymous with the award. A welcome turn of events, it opens the door to programming that brings audiences into contact with a, perhaps, less familiar name. Such is the case with this week’s screening of News From Home, Akerman’s avant-garde documentary, which finds the director ‘exiled’ in New York, reading letters sent to her from her mum back in Europe.

Wednesday – Shallow Grave 8pm (and 5.45pm Thursday) @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

A trio of flatmates (baby Ewan McGregor, Kerry Fox and Christopher Eccleston) come into an unexpected windfall in director Danny Boyle’s 1994 debut Shallow Grave – and come face to face with the consequences of greed and betrayal.

Thursday – Opening: Manchester International Festival 2025: Dream Differently  @ Aviva Studios/Venues across the city – £Various

Framed this year as a ‘leap into the unknown’, 2025′s MIF is, nevertheless, the usual reliable mix of family friendly and aficionado-centred visual art, performance, spectacle, music and more. Everyone will be talking about Eric Cantona, whose artistic collaboration with Ryan Gander features in the huge group exhibition, Football City, Art United. Our highlights include contemporary ballet reimagining Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man (starring John Grant and Ed Watson); and the first international solo exhibition of indigenous northern Peruvian artist and activist, Santiago Yahuarcani, whose narrative paintings are “rooted in the legacy of my ancestors, those who saw the universe not as something to conquer, but to revere.”

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.

Moolakii Club: Silent Film Soundtracks 7pm @ Future Yard, Birkenhead – £7

Obscure, avant-garde early silent and experimental film set to contemporary electronica. A compelling proposition.

Friday – Exhibition Opening: Hollywood, New York, Colwyn Bay @ Oriel Colwyn, Colwyn Bay – FREE

Championing photography in Wales since 2012, Oriel Colwyn’s latest opening, from sometime Tatler photographer Dafydd Jones, coincides with American Independence Day. Working in the US with the likes of Vanity Fair, Jones captured the best – and worst –  of US society, from Hollywood to Wall Street and beyond. Catch Jones in conversation at the gallery on Saturday @ 1pm.

More photography from the Big Apple

Saturday – Apocalypse Now: Final Cut 12.30pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

Francis Ford Coppola’s reimagining of Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, now has a Final Cut – restored from the original negative by the man himself. Coppola’s preferred version of his Vietnam War epic, this edit pushes its run-time over the three-hour mark and can be considered definitive. Want to make a day of it? Documentary Hearts of Darkness, chronicling Coppola’s on-set travails, follows at 4.30pm.

Sunday – The Piano Teacher 4.15pm @ FACT Liverpool – £9.35

Even if you’re somewhat familiar with the challenging, mercurial oeuvre of Austrian director, Michael Haneke, his 2001 film, The Piano Teacher, could well catch you unawares. Adapted from Elfriede Jelinek’s 1983 psychosexual novel of the same name, it stars Isabelle Huppert as the repressed, hemmed in music professor of the title. A brutal, fascinating, and ultimately destructive character study of a woman pushing for sexual agency.

Mike Pinnington/Laura Robertson

Images from top: Football City, Art United. MIF25. Matt Fox, The Magic Of Middle-earth 2025, The Atkinson, photo by Dave Jones. Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream? at Mostyn Gallery. Ewan McGregor, in director Danny Boyle’s 1994 debut Shallow Grave (still). Dachshunds fighting over doggy canapés. Iris Love (holding Just Desserts) and Brooke Astor (holding Dolly Astor) at a dachshund party, Barbetta restaurant. Manhattan, 12 February 1990: Dafydd Jones, Hollywood, New York, Colwyn Bay exhibition, Oriel Colwyn 2025