King Cotton is a unique music theatre piece that was developed by Metal in collaboration with the writer, Jimmy McGovern, musician, Ian Brownbill and Jude Kelly as director. The story is based in historical fact whilst exploring universal themes – personal freedom set against the needs of a wider community, love, loss, joy and redemption. These themes are worked out through the plight of African slaves in Southern America, and impoverished workers in Lancashire cotton mills. The story traces how the lives of these two distant communities were inextricably linked through cotton with devastating effect during the American Civil War.

Based on the research and the original idea of Ian Brownbill, the story and format was developed over two years at Metal. In 2007 co-producers The Lowry and Liverpool Culture Company took the story on to its stage debut at The Lowry in Salford and The Liverpool Empire, co-inciding with the 200th anniversary of the parliamentary abolition of slavery.

Alongside the production, Metal developed an ambitious education project that worked with a large and varied community in and around the Metal house in Kensington with the support of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.

6 Marmaduke Street is Metal Liverpool’s artists residency space.  In 2004 Community Seven invited Metal to occupy one of their empty properties in Kensington - a three story Georgian terrace house to provide a North West ‘home’ for Metal’s artistic activities and investigations with an added focus on how Metal and its associated artists can contribute to rebuilding the social and economic health of the area through arts-led social inclusion and educational projects.
Since moving to Liverpool our work has become focussed on how artistic process, and the practice of artists of all kinds, situated at the heart of interesting neighbourhoods, can contribute to, and make a positive impact on, community life and potentially affect the political thinking around major urban regeneration strategies.

From this unique environment we invite artists, thinkers and makers from the local community and across the globe to collaborate together to inspire, innovate and exchange.  Over four years we have accommodated over 250 artists from at least 15 different countries.  The house on Marmaduke Street is an essential resource that has provided space for these artists to live and work in Kensington, engaging with the community and sharing ideas and practice with our neighbours as well who have working in partnership with other local artists, residents, schools and groups, working in the region.  Our intention is to create spaces that embody Metal’s belief in how culture can contribute to the general well-being and development of communities.
AGA have extended their support of Metal and we have a second AGA oven in Liverpool for the Metal House.

Horse Power

Bringing International artworks together with locally based artists, HORSE POWER was the first in a series of exhibitions curated by Metal's artists in residence AL and AL, taking as its starting point the technological and historical themes which Edge Hill Station inspires.  HORSE POWER was a mix of stories, objects, artists, artworks and ideas which related to the invention of steam-powered travel and the impact this had on man’s relationship with nature. 22 works by 17 artists, a Ferrari production video and a stray photograph made up this exhibition that evolved around the actual and the symbolic power of the horse. Mythology, religion, philosophy, technological history and evolution, and literature were some of the subjects that were explored in connection to the several dimensions and artistic manifestations of the horse throughout history.

Mary Fitzpatrick

Mary Fitzpatrick is a contemporary Fine Artist based in Liverpool. She has worked in Belfast, the Middle East and has exhibited in Ireland, England and throughout Europe. Born in Liverpool to Irish parentage, her experience of Northern Ireland began at an early age.
Her projects have included themes such as the peace process in Ireland and the aftermath of the first Gulf war. Mary made large scale photographic sculptures based on a two year art documentary of events within the Irish Peace Process in Northern Ireland.  Now mainly known for her large scale atmospheric installations depicting images from places abandoned after conflict. Mary exhibited a black and white photographic installation at the Blade factory in the 2004 Liverpool Biennial as part of the 'Streets of Desire' exhibition curated by Jump Ship Rat. Mary has also taken part on several exhibitions touring across Serbia. She was shortlisted for the Liverpool Art Prize 2008 which was held at Novas CUC and also took part in the FIS Irish show at Novas CUC.

In 2008 Metal presented Mary's work in a solo show at Edge Hill station. The exhibition chronicled her time in Belfast from 1993 - 1998. The show is an intimate portrayal of a city under conflict during a critical journey towards peace.

www.maryfitzpatrick.co.uk

Funded through a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, and a donation from PH Holt Charitable Trust, the King Cotton in Kensington project worked with St Francis of Assisi City Academy, Shorefields Community School, Phoenix Junior School, young patients at Alder Hey Hospital, Kensington Fields Community Centre, and a wide variety of individuals living and working in the Kensington neighbourhood in an arts-led project designed to highlight the histories and heritage captured in the King Cotton story that can be traced directly to the social, economic, cultural and physical aspects of the Liverpool landscape.

Through the process of researching and creating art works in different disciplines – music, visual arts, written word and drama – participants investigated different aspects of their own history, and explored the physical traces of this heritage through local architecture and lthe local museum collections with guidance from Merseyside historian Laurence Westgaph.

"The whole experience was stimulating and hugely enjoyable, culminating in the magnificent production of King Cotton." Josie Hughes, Project Participant

Our aim in developing the project was to place the production of the theatre piece at the heart of a vibrant Liverpool community- of which we are part- building up the communal sense of purpose as we work together to look at how a large piece of creative work can focus it's opportunities and impact in a defined neighbourhood and ask the help of the local population to inform, help create, learn from, and build towards a new theatre production which is then performed in their city.

The artists involved have brought their expertise from around the world, and locally, to the project.  Musician Dede Saint Prix (Martinique), storyteller Inno Sorsy (London via Ghana: pictured above) theatre company 20 Stories High (Liverpool), visual artist Holly Murray (Brighton), and Liverpool’s Youth Music Service all worked with the community around the Metal House to create work that was presented in the theatre foyer on the opening evenings of 14^th September at the Lowry and the 25^th September at the Empire Theatre.

" To be free through the open door

Doing what you want.

What do you want?

I want to be like a bird

In the open air

No walls, no boundaries

On the wind, over the sea

Fly as far as the eye can see!"

By Oliver, Lee and Daniel, patients at Alder Hey Hospital.

The Pavilions Project formed a major part of Liverpool's Capital of Culture 2008 Public Interventions Programme.   The aim was to take over the city throughout 2008 and form a broad and inclusive programme of work that reflects Liverpool’s cultural life and its varied communities including the city centre’s surrounding neighbourhoods.

The Pavilions Project was supported by the Big Table; made up of Liverpool Biennial, Metal in Kensington, Rotunda College North Liverpool and Garston Cultural Village. In 2005 the Big Table Network was formed with the aim of creating, through collaborative programming, a presence in the city centre for the communities of the outer neighbourhoods, and a presence for the Biennial in the neighbourhoods beyond the city centre. A model for this proposal was provided by the city of Lille’s network of 12 Maisons Folie realised for its year as European Capital of Culture 2004. This involved the networking and re-branding of existing community centres and creation of additional centres.

Metal's project for Kensington was Juan Manuel Peláez and Luis Fernando Pelaez 's 'Nexus' a temporary outdoor ‘pavilion’ at Edge Hill Station in Liverpool. The structure was situated off Tunnel Road (L7) on the approach road to Platforms 3 and 4, until the end of 2008 and was free and accessible to the public.

The structure was designed by the artists based on an area of wooden Grade 11 listed* paving at the station, dating back to the early 1800’s. The individual ‘peg’ sections of the paving reminded the artists of moorings for ships and they liked the idea of referencing travel from the past whilst looking to the future.

The pavilion was programmed by Metal and the residents and community around Edge Hill station.

On Saturday 9th June 2007, Metal hosted the Edge Hill International Festival to promote the European Arts project 'Open Here'.  The day was a huge success with 2,000 visitors filling the un-used platforms.

‘We need a venue like this for free artistic expression and somewhere different for different people to feel a sense of belonging…’ Curtis Watt

The wide range of art forms and levels of practitioner was intended to encourage access for all, ensuring a number of different access points for participants, creatives and the general visitor.  The work and ideas generated through the European project and the Truck itself provided a critical approach to the topic of migration and that the performers and participants, which included refugee and migrant groups, offered a different take on the theme.

Metal felt it especially important to present a fun, vibrant day where a diverse range of participants responded to the theme in their own way. The event highlighted the quality of creative talent in the surrounding neighbourhoods and that we could work together to produce something positive, that sets out our ambition for the future in an inclusive way.

The response to the event was incredibly positive and we hope to build on its success with the launch of the Pavilion in May 2008 and the restoration of the buildings across the tracks on platforms 1 & 2 developing the space into an arts venue for culture, debate and community in early 2009.

"It's a brilliant idea for restoring our history and heritage, and it will be a really good resource for capturing the imagination of our young people about the possibilities of the past and of the future. "
Paul Nicholson - local resident and Chair of Kensington Fields Community Centre.

TRUCK STOP on Liverpool Stories:

http://liverpoolstories.blogspot.com/2007/06/edge-hill-international-festival.html

open here: consTRUCKtions - conNEXTions was the first EU-bound project run by the Department of Arts and Culture, City of Munich and it was developed in partnership with Ottakring (Vienna), Divadelní Ústav (Prague), Metal Culture (Liverpool), Cola Production (Marseilles) and Cosmos of Culture (Athens).The central theme of the European project was migration and cultural diversity.
http://www.open-here.eu

The Winter Lights programme began in 2006 with artist Ron Haselden’s Animal. The neon light commissioning project continued for three years seeing a total of 9 neon artworks lighting up the three Liverpool neighbourhoods represented by the Big Table; Kensington, Kirkdale and Garston.

For the first commission in 2006 Ron Haseldon invited pupils from schools in each of the Biennial Big Table neighbourhood areas to make a drawing on the subject of Animal on an A6 piece of paper.  Three of these Animal drawings were transformed into large scale, freestanding line drawings in neon light to be installed in their respective neighbourhoods.  The Kensington light was the exact replica of a Polar Bear drawn by a year one pupil, Maaz Binsaud, from Phoenix Primary School.

Commenting on why Community Seven was delighted to support this event, Tom McGuire Director of Community Seven said:
‘At Community Seven we believe that a big part of regeneration involves engaging with young people so what we especially liked about this project was the involvement of local school children.  At the end of the day, a giant neon polar bear on our building in the run up to Christmas was an opportunity we could not turn down.’

Animal was supported by: Culture Company, Rotunda College, Metal, Garston Cultural Village, Community 7, PH Holt Charitable Trust, The Churches Conservation Trust, Friends of St Jame, CDS, Northwest RDA, LHT and Urban Splash.

In 2007 internationally renowned French artist Franck Scurti was commissioned to create a second series of amazing new Winter Lights for Kirkdale, Kensington and Garston. Franck Scurti was chosen because of his investigative approach within communities and his engaging and playful artworks that found a natural home within the neighbourhoods of Liverpool.  He created a series of Liverpool Jackpots each with a different jackpot sequence for each neighbourhood: drawings relating to food, a body part and a phrase taken from British press selected in consultation with local residents.  Kensington residents chose 'Power to the People'!  The work responds to a recurring theme in Franck’s work relating city life to games of chance.

“I think there is a close relation between the behaviour code triggered by the experience of the urban ‘shock’ and the technique of the games of chance; between the disappearance of the craftsmanship and the industrialisation of leisure activities.”

The source of text and the commercial context of neon signage are joined with traditionally humorous props and loaded images with many translations and interpretations through seemingly random sequences. We are used to a constant bombardment of commercial messages so it is refreshing that these sequences inspire our bigger ideas, encourage positive change and embolden community spirit; the texts chosen by each neighbourhood reveal this desire.

Liverpool Jackpot was supported by: Liverpool Culture Company, Rotunda College, Metal, Garston Cultural Village, and Community 7.

The final neon installation in 2008 was Michael Pinsky’s Title Author Genre. Taking the form of three animated neon sculptures each constructed from specially designed signatures from each area the sculptures mixed existing graffiti tags with symbols specifically created by members of each community in response to each light’s location. Children from Kensington Field’s Community Centre came up with words and phrases that they felt specifically related to their neighbourhood. Can you see what common nickname for Kensington appears in the tag?

Artist Michael Pinsky believes graffiti helps define our neighbourhoods and for this artwork he has drawn inspiration from some of the graffiti tags that currently exist on streets and buildings in Liverpool. The process of transforming these marks into neon motifs and creating illuminated sculptures alters the way we think about them. Whilst some visitors only see abstract calligraphic shapes, others will recognise their origins or even have authored the tag.

“Tagging is one from the large gamut of methods people use to make their mark on their urban environment. As an artist who uses the city as a canvas to develop, produce and present ideas, the relationship between commissioned public art and the undercurrent of other urban interventions has always interested me. The process of transforming a number of these often-beautiful forms into neon motifs, to create illuminated sculptures, changes the perceived functions and implications of these designs, pushing the ambiguous relationship they have with their community.”
Michael Pinsky

www.michaelpinsky.com

www.biennial.com