Liverpool Calling

I was commissioned by VAL (Visual Arts in Liverpool) to write a piece on the Liverpool art scene. Read it in full on the Liverpool Biennale website.

Excerpt - Full of anticipation for a weekend of exhibition openings and talks, I arrived in sunny Liverpool. Home to the Beatles, The Grand National, an ever-growing arts scene and more shopping centres than you can shake a stick at, cranes penetrate the skyline of this once prosperous port as redevelopment is rife.......Liverpool is a wash with artistic talent and possibility yet there is an air of discontent. It almost feels as if it needs to be an outsider, dare I say a Southerner, someone from the big smoke to make a proclamation of the true potential of this city.

Having visited Liverpool on numerous occasions albeit mainly on press trips, meaning apart from a brief glimpse out of the coach window that would collect you at Lime Street station and deliver you to your destination, my sense and knowledge of this North West city was somewhat limited. Yet there in the derelict buildings of majestic-port-city-yester-year lay a beckoning wake up call for artistic growth and enlightenment. READ ON

And check out the inspiring video By Liverpool Biennale of Richard Wilson's truly remarkable public art intervention.

Turning the Place Over - Richard Wilson, 2007 from Liverpool Biennial on Vimeo.