Stories to discover as Liverpool Biennial takes over the city
Liverpool Biennial opens this weekend | Play inspired by Bootle's white stag| Latest North West arts news
I was recently treated to a very lengthy explanation of the formation of sandstone by a German tour guide at Heidelberg determined to share every bit of his knowledge when we really just wanted to explore (I was obsessed with the gurning faces on the castle’s walls). So it was a bit of a relief that the artists featuring in this year’s Liverpool Biennial took the theme of BEDROCK - referring to the city’s sandstone - as a metaphorical rather than geological starting point.
For many years now, the Biennial has itself been part of the bedrock of Liverpool’s cultural calendar - as has the concurrent artist-led Independents Biennial, which this year is showing work by 300 artists across 120-plus sites throughout Liverpool City Region. But both festivals should also be what lies above it - the fertile soil that nurtures creativity and helps to sustain artists, and the wildflowers growing in the cracks.
Liverpool Biennial weaves threads across the city centre
There’s an Italian architect who designed a church shaped like a ship’s upturned hull for the storm-battered Anglesey coast. There are English soldiers travelling by whaler boats to rescue a major-general. And a mother in Poland sending care packages to her daughter in the UK.
These are all stories contained within this year’s Liverpool Biennial, which opens this weekend - an edition that’s packed with narratives to whisk you out of the port and all across the globe. It’s no coincidence that, while the themes are far-reaching, this year’s festival has a deep connection to its location. Guest curator Marie-Anne McQuay, who has produced a thoughtful, coherent programme that melds with the city, knows Liverpool well as Bluecoat’s former head of programming.
For new visitors to the city, the Biennial offers an interesting route to explore, taking in the well-established art galleries as well as places not usually suggested in the travel guides. For those of us who lives here, or nearby, it’s a chance to see the familiar places through a different lens and to look inside locations even locals might not be aware of.
More than 30 artists from all over the world - including Canada, Peru, the Netherlands, Lebanon, India and Haiti - show work responding to the theme BEDROCK, a topic referencing the sandstone that lies beneath our feet and was used to construct many of Liverpool’s most striking buildings, but also the city’s unique social foundations.
The link is most obvious in Liverpool Cathedral - the fifth largest in the world and an edifice of red sandstone atop a former quarry - where the building’s fabric provides a backdrop for Maria Loizidou’s Where Am I Now?, a stunning handwoven, metallic thread piece featuring birds that are regular visitors to the grounds. It flows like waterwall from the Nave Bridge, glittering in the light from the stained glass windows. In the Lady Chapel, bloom Ana Navas’ substantial yet delicate glass flowers, while Petros Moris’ sculpted figures cavort outside the Oratory.
This year’s more unusual locations include an industrial space at 20 Jordan Street, where Cevdet Erek’s football stadium built from identical bricks of earth - Away Terrace (Us and Them) - includes a tiny section for away fans. Devoid of brightly-coloured shirts and fans’ faces, the terraces are disconcertingly uniform, showing that football is nothing without people believing in its importance.
At the Black-E, Turner Prize 2012 winner Elizabeth Price’s video work HERE WE ARE has a perfect story arc, drawing viewers in with the intriguing tale of Italian architect Giuseppe Rinvolucri’s unusual design for Our Lady Star of the Sea and St Winefride’s Church on Anglesey. Questions about the influx of Modernist-style Catholic churches are posed as a conversation written on screen, building - as the soundtrack crescendos - to an invitation to look inside.
Liverpool’s more formal gallery spaces are given over to more traditionally laid-out exhibitions, each suiting the particular venue’s character while remaining true to the BEDROCK theme. Highlights include Cevdet Erek’s Father’s Timeline, marked with personal and historical moments (at Tate Liverpool + RIBA North); Kara Chin’s seagull-pooping installation Mapping the Wasteland- PAY AND DISPLAY (at FACT); Odur Ronald’s Muly'Ato Limu - All in One Boat, a mobile of metallic passports (at Bluecoat) Katarzyna Perlak’s Mother Tongue, Woven Skin, a huge hanging made from the bags containing care packages sent from her mother, newspaper clippings and ‘kitchen wisdoms’ (at the Walker) - see also her video work The Land Beneath Sleeps Lightly, hedonistic, otherworldly characters filmed at the Adelphi Hotel (Open Eye Gallery).
The art works spill out of the venues and into the real world where, as they are not immediately obvious, they form a sort of scavenger hunt. Look for them under your feet, on shop shelves and in windows. Also strengthening the festival’s threads across the city centre, and creating a slight sense of deja vu, is the decision to display works by the same artist in different locations.
As every edition, there are far too many pieces to mention in a single feature - but at least half of the fun is stumbling on something unexpected. Grab a leaflet and see what you can find. Wear sensible shoes but open your mind.
Liverpool Biennial runs until Sunday, September 14 at various venues across Liverpool City Centre. See next week’s Stored Honey for an in-depth look at Independents Biennial, which runs concurrently celebrating the work of artists based in Liverpool City Region.
Latest arts news
🍎 The Contest of the Fruits, the first UK institutional solo exhibition by the internationally acclaimed art collective Slavs and Tatars opens at esea contemporary in Manchester on Saturday, June 14. Running until Sunday, September 14, the exhibition is an exploration of language, politics, religion and humour through the lens of a 19th-century Uighur poem, reimagined as a vibrant animated film and rap battle.
📽️ The Reader is launching Liverpool’s biggest new open-air cinema in Calderstones Park this summer. Running from Wednesday, July 30 to Thursday, August 28, eight literary-inspired films ranging from 10 Things I Hate About you to Wicked will be screened against the backdrop of the Grade II-listed Georgian Mansion House.
🎵 Beats Beyond Borders, a one-day festival of music, activism and solidarity produced by Clementine Arts CIC, is taking place at Future Yard, Birkenhead, on Sunday, June 22 as part of Refugee Week 2025. Bringing together some of Merseyside’s most exciting up-and-coming artists alongside spoken word performers, guest speakers, and refugee voices, in a creative stand with displaced communities in Palestine, Sudan and the UK, it will donate 100% of ticket sales to Medical Aid for Palestinians, Save the Children Sudan and Heart 4 Refugees.
In case you missed it
Opening this week
The Walrus Has a Right To Adventure by Wirral-based writer Billie Collins is a “fast-paced, climate-conscious feel-good play” inspired by strange but true headlines, including a white stag being spotted in Bootle town centre in 2021. Premiering at the Liverpool Everyman from Thursday, June 12 to Saturday, June, it follows three very different people as the wild unexpectedly enters their ordinary lives.
Last chance to see
Inspired by the work of Don Tonge, who photographed Bolton in the 1970s, and created in partnership with the British Culture Archive, Documenting Your Community, at Bolton Museum celebrates the work of local photographers and presents a picture of the town spanning several decades. Ends Sunday, June 15.
Thank you for reading the 135th edition of Stored Honey. If you enjoyed what you read then please hit the ❤️ button as it helps to get it shown more widely.
I’m off now to put my feet up after visiting 15-plus venues in two days. In the meantime, you can get hold of me on Instagram, on Bluesky, in the comments or by replying to this email.
Have a great week,
Laura
P.S. A city of culture or a city of contradictions?
