Tickets are now on sale for our next Salon evening with Robert MacFarlane on 1 September. To book a place please click here.

Metal hosted another amazing Salon evening at Chalkwell Hall last night in partnership with writer and artist, Rachel Lichtenstein with guest speakers, visual and performance artist, Oreet Ashery, playwright, Samantha Ellis and novelist, Naomi Alderman - all award winning writers and artists.

The evening started with a screening of three film Oreet Ashery's Dancing with Men, Why Do You Think I Left? and O Jerusalem and Oreet went on to talk about her three recently published art books The Novel of Nonel and Vovel (Charta), Dancing with Men (LADA) and Staying; Dream, Bin, Soft, Stud and Other Stories (Artangel)

Samantha Ellis delighted the 80 strong audience, packed into the drawing rooms of Chalkwell Hall, with a reading (with host artist and writer, Rachel Lichtenstein) from her really entertaining play Cling to me Like Ivy.  And then a real treat - she read an extract from her as yet unpublished, untitled new work.

The evening finished with the extraordinary Naomi Alderman who read from her two published works, The Lessons and Disobedience.

This Wednesday we announced the winners of this year's Liverpool Art Prize.  The People's Choice winner is James Quin and the Liverpool Art Prize 2010 went to David Jacques, who will go on to exhibit at the Walker Art Gallery early next year.

Well done to all the artists! And a big thank you to the sponsors.

Despite the gorgeous weather at the weekend we had a crowd of culturepoolers come to the Edge Hill to hear talks from the nominated artists about their work, and to enjoy some fresh fruit smoothies and strawberries and cream.  It was a lovely day and we all enjoyed the fascinating insights into the background of the work on show that each artist gave to us.

Don't forget voting for the People's Choice Award ends today.  The winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony starting at 6pm tomorrow.  If you can't make it in person follow our twitter updates to get the results as it happens!

We were delighted to host the launch of the Liverpool Art Prize last night; an exhibition of works by five of Liverpool’s leading artists, Gina Czarnecki, David Jacques,James Quin, Paul Rooney and Emily Speed. Metal has enjoyed a close relationship with the Liverpool Art Prize during its first two years, inviting 2008 finalist Mary Fitzpatrick to exhibit at the station and in 2009 Metal’s artists in residence Al and Al were winners of the award. Ian and Minako Jackson founders of the Liverpool Art Prize and the driving force behind one of the UK’s leading art blogs artinliverpool.com are long time friends of Metal and we are looking forward to working closely with them to build on the success of this year’s exhibition at the station and to develop it even further in future years.

Tickets now on sale for Salon on 7th July with Naomi Alderman, Oreet Ashery and Samantha Ellis.  To purchase a ticket, please click here.  For further information and biogs on the speakers, follow this link to our Salon page.


Last night saw Chalkwell Hall packed once again for the second of our literary Salon evenings.  Hosted and curated by the artist and writer Rachel Lichtenstein we were treated to an evening all about the east end of London - its sounds, characters, images and poetry. 

Alan Dein, the award winning BBC Oral Historian, took us through some of the stories and sounds he has been amassing over many years.  Film makers Phil Maxwell and Hazuan Hashim who have been living and collecting imagery from across the east end for the past 30 years showed excerpts from two films and talked about their lifetimes commitment and love of the ever changing nature of the east end.  Poet Stephen Watts gave us a powerful and moving reading of both his own poetry and that of the acclaimed Jewish east end poet A.N. Stencl who had been an inspiration for many of the artists in the room.

All this, washed down with some fine wine, good food and great conversation afterwards.

See you at the next one.

We've just spent a magical week with the beautiful imaginations of Rebecca Sharp and Elizabeth Willow and their characters Juniper Davy and Sonny Lumière. The promenade piece of theatre, with spoken word poetry and original score, was written by Rebecca Sharp with visual curiosities by Elizabeth Willow.  It was performed all last week at Edge Hill and for anyone who missed it below is a selection of photographs taken by Mark McNulty.

Link to Project Blog

Rebecca Joy Sharp’s year as musician in residence at Metal culminates this week in her wonderfully evocative 'Ballad of Juniper Davy and Sonny Lumière'  Collaborating with visual artist Elizabeth Willow they have transformed the station buildings with sound and found objects to make a home for Sonny and Juniper, two imagined characters who have inhabited the station buildings since they opened in 1836.

Metal is delighted to present two of Liverpool’s bright new stars supported by a wonderful team of local musicians and actors.  The promenade performances continue all of this week following last night’s memorable premier.

You can buy or reserve your tickets from News from Nowhere bookshop, 96 Bold Street, Liverpool L1 4HY Tel. 0151 708 7270.