Culture Diary w/c 04-08-2025
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
