Culture Diary w/c 22-07-2019
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from around the North of England and the rest of the UK – and loads of it’s free!
Monday – Circulation Metaphor 5pm @ Korean Cultural Centre UK, London – FREE
Later this year, Gwangju, South Korea (one of a network of 180 UNESCO Creative Cities), will celebrate its status as a city of culture. So, this exhibition offers a good opportunity to familiarise yourself with six artists and a collective who live and work there. Responding to and exploring themes of the circulation of life and nature, the show foregrounds our relationship with the natural world. Participating artists include: Bongchae Son, Jeongju Jeong, Jeonglok Lee, Kihyun Jung, Sanghwa Park, Sehee Sarah Bark, Earl Park + Saza Kim + Jeongsik Bae.
Tuesday – The Brink 6pm @ FACT, Liverpool – £8
Barely a week goes by in which I don’t see or write about something responding to the dire straits with which we are currently beset. First on the new world order bingo card this week is The Brink, a fly on the wall documentary following former Trump strategist and self-described “virulently anti-establishment” Steve Bannon. Following Bannon through 2018’s US mid-term elections, we find him glad-handing, cajoling and flattering the likes of Nigel Farage, as he attempts to unify various far right global concerns.
Zig Zags/Pink Cigs/Pariah – 8pm @ Drop the Dumbulls, Liverpool – £5
Fast and loud, in an interview earlier this year, LA band Zig Zags declared: “We like heavy metal. We like punk rock. We don’t like anything else.” I mean, it’s fair enough, and it shows in the music. Latest record, They’ll Never Take Us Alive (inspired by cult coming of age films such as Over the Edge), opens – pleasingly – with a track titled Punk Fucking Metal. In many ways, it’s all you need to know about this band as to whether or not they’re for you. Ably supported by Sheffield’s Pink Cigs, and Pariah.
Wednesday – The Blair Witch Project 20th Anniversary Screening 7.30pm @ Plaza Cinema, Stockport – £6
Has it really been 20 years since we sat, transfixed by that glob of snot dripping from the nose of a terrified student filmmaker in a haunted Maryland forest? Indeed, it has, and Grimmfest – purveyors of all things horror – are indulging us this week with an anniversary screening of The Blair Witch Project, reminding us of those heady days when the ‘found-footage’ genre was in its infancy and jump-scares weren’t yet obligatory. Nostalgic over 15s fun.
Thursday – Exhibition Opening: Liam Fallon – Supersymmetry 6pm @ Turnpike Gallery, Leigh – FREE
Taking its title from a theory found in particle physics, in Supersymmetry (which proposes that every type of particle has a perfect partner), sculptor Liam Fallon has created work responding to the most humane of ideas – that we are never truly alone. His bold and colourful sculptures rendered using traditional processes of casting, welding and joinery taught to him by his father and grandmother, address love, sex, fear and loneliness. We’re assuming access to hankies on arrival has been considered.
Friday – Pride X Tate Liverpool 6.30pm @ Tate Liverpool – FREE
Liverpool Pride is almost upon us, so take this opportunity to celebrate early at Tate Liverpool with an evening of talks and workshops, including free entry to their blockbuster Keith Haring exhibition. Featuring poetry readings, Voguing workshops, an LGBTQ collection tour, there’s lots to get involved in. In the Tate Exchange space, HIV support, information and training centre, Sahir House hosts a discussion of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, sharing stories of lives lost in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Indietracks Festival 5pm @ Midland Railway Centre, Derbyshire – £79/£41
Glastonbury not for you, and you’ve missed out on Greenman tickets? Let us tell you about Indietracks, “a celebration of independent, creative and DIY pop music” on a heritage steam railway site in Derbyshire. Across three nights, this under-the-radar fest pulls together the type of band who you accidentally see on the second stage who then go on to be your highlight of the weekend. From Bis, The Orielles and Big Joanie, to Peaness and Stealing Sheep, Indietracks has your DIY punk, indie folk and electropop needs covered.
Saturday – FaxFiction 6.30pm @ Waterside Arts, Sale (Gtr. Manchester) – £8/£6
Part of performance festival Refract:19, FaxFiction considers the deep interest – and in some cases love – for old technologies. These were fleetingly cutting edge things, in living memory for many of us, that include the likes of cassette tapes, floppy discs, VHS, overhead projectors, games consoles, View-Masters, fax machines, Dictaphones, Ceefax and so on. Here, seven writers – Sarah-Clare Conlon, David Gaffney, Rosie Garland, Valerie O’Riordan, Fat Roland and Nicholas Royle – have responded with short stories that reflect on our relationship to “these ancient machines, these relics of the future”.
New Found Land – Artist Talk & Tour with Anna Gonzalez Noguchi 2pm @ Caustic Coastal, Salford – FREE
Homeware, tools, a broken pencil – quotidian marks of a life seem to litter the work of Anna Gonzalez Noguchi. Based in London, through sculpture and pre-existing personal objects, Spanish Japanese artist Gonzalez Noguchi negotiates subjects including territory, family and memory to, as she puts it, “anchor experience in tangible forms”. Let the RCA graduate talk you through her new works with this free exhibition tour.
Sunday – Summer Sculpture Walk 1.30-3.30pm @ Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool – Donation (Pre-booking essential, very limited places)
This relaxed, summer walk around Liverpool city centre’s key, overlooked and/or most controversial public artworks, marks the launch of our new book, Present Tense. Inspired by Denise Courcoux’s Present Tense essay, ‘Finding Richard and Barbara: A Sculpture Walk’, we’ll visit and discuss several important artworks located between (and including) Richard Wilson’s Turning the Place Over (2007) and Barbara Hepworth’s Square with Two Circles (1964). Hosted by Denise and friendly neighbourhood TDN co-founders, Mike Pinnington and Laura Robertson, we’ll cover lots of ground, both literal and figurative. Starting at the Victoria Gallery, the walk will conclude at one of Liverpool’s historic pubs near Moorfields Train Station, where we can reflect over a drink or two.
Northwest Zinefest 2019 11am @ People’s History Museum, Manchester – FREE
Zine culture, many years after its initial peak, is flourishing, and is much more diverse than ever before. This weekend’s Northwest Zinefest sees a celebration of the scene, bringing together makers, artists and activists for a day of workshops and talks. With workshops covering DIY podcasting, zine- and archiving manifesto-making, stallholders include Brown Girls Do It, Shy Radicals and Not Dead Yet press/strange things? Collective.
Mike Pinnington
Images, top to bottom: Tree of Life © Jeong Lok Lee. Courtesy Zig Zags. Still, The Blair Witch Project (1999). Courtesy Stealing Sheep. Anna Gonzalez Noguchi, Caustic Coastal. Liverpool Summer Sculpture Walk