A product of pre-millennial angst and bleak but not too far off the mark future-casting from the Wachowski’s game changing actioner; The Matrix is back in cinemas marking its 25th anniversary.

Part of a wider University of Chester project, this exhibition brings into focus the photography archives of Cheshire Life Magazine, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year.

Wednesday – Collections in Focus: Pre-Raphaelites Tour 1.30pm @ the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool – £6

It can be all too easy to overlook the riches under the roof of a building like Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery. Sometimes, a guided tour is the perfect opportunity to drink in and learn more about the life and work of the brotherhood and associated artists, including John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and Ford Madox Brown.

Thursday – Sophy King – Artist Talk 6.30pm @ Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire – £5

Multi-disciplinary environmental artist, Sophy King, discusses her site-specific work, Thresholds, with reference to: ‘boundaries, the relationship of people with moss in pre- and post-industrial landscapes, and a glimpse of another world where we can share our spaces with the more-than-human’. Further Reading: Introducing Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery

Friday – Exhibition Opening: Fearful Symmetry 5pm @ the Royal Standard, Liverpool – FREE

A welcome return to exhibition programming from artist-led gallery, The Royal Standard, with Fearful Symmetry – a show from painter, Xanthe Tilzey.

Exhibition Opening: Start With Something 6pm @ Bridewell Studios & Gallery, Liverpool – FREE

Reminding us a little bit of the good old days of coordinated exhibition openings by the city’s leading independent spaces, Start With Something opens an hour after TRS’ show, meaning you can get along to both. Featuring work by 10 artists, including Jason Thompson, Suzy Willey, Neil Zakiewicz and curator Gareth Kemp, with a performance from psych pop merchants, Silvermoon.

Saturday – Exhibition Closing: David Clapham: The River Runs Through @ Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead – FREE

Large scale landscape paintings of contrasting views, responding to the built- and lived environment of Portugal- and London-based artist, David Clapham.

Exhibition Closing: RA Walden: Object Transformations Through the Coordinate of Time @ Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool – FREE

Artist RA Walden’s work includes sculpture, installation, video and print, to centre a queer, disabled perspective on the fragility of the body. In Object Transformations Through the Coordinate of Time, they consider ‘quantum physics, the ecological crisis, ancient timekeeping and the life cycle of worms’ to mark and measure the passage of time – normative and otherwise. Read: How Soon is Now: The Strange Case of RA Walden’s Ghost Clock

Sunday –  2001: A Space Odyssey 8pm @ FACT Liverpool – £8

It’s no surprise that Stanley Kubrick’s love letter to losing your mind in outer space while coming face to face with the key to humanity sits pretty in the latest Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll. While there’s no bad time to watch it, now seems especially apt, given the current debates raging about AI. No less than a masterpiece.

Mike Pinnington

Images/media, from top: 2001: A Space Odyssey film still; The Matrix 25th anniversary trailer; Sophy King, Thresholds; Gareth Kemp, Start With Something; RA Walden, © the artist, courtesy the Grundy Blackpool