Liverpool
Dream Machine
Sept 15th - 23rd Oct 2010
Opening on the 180th Anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, inside the buildings of the oldest existing passenger railway station still in use, this exhibition will celebrate the first journey taken between two cities through a series of large-scale works which reflect on time, routine, repetition, direction and discipline; qualities that all inform the artistic process.
Featuring artists: Gareth Brew, Nicola Dale and composer Ailis Ni Riain, Phil Lockhart, Tom Palin, and Richard Proffitt also including an essay by Kenn Taylor.
A reflection of the beat and rhythm of train traffic and influenced by the idea that the rail industry’s timetabling created a need for a uniform measure of time throughout the UK, the work will show how the journey itself can be a source for artistic inspiration.
Part of the Liverpool Biennial Independents strand.
Free. Open Tues- Fri 2-6pm, Sat 12-4pm
Download press release here.
Online life drawing - How to draw strangers
On Friday 27th August 2010 at Metal Liverpool, Edge Hill Station, Artist Hayley Louise Goodsell is running the workshop 'Online drawing - How to draw strangers', a drawing workshop for all levels and abilities.
Chatroulette is an online service that pairs strangers at random for webcam based conversations, matching you with people from all over the world for video, audio, text and chat. Visitors to the website can begin an online conversation and at any point either user may leave the current chat and initiate another random connection.
Workshop participants will be connected as a group to Chatroulette, via a projector and have 3-5 minutes to draw each person that appears. The fast paced drawing will improve your ability to speed-sketch, and will explore your voyeristic boundaries via drawing people from all over the world over the internet.
Participants must be 18+. Some refreshments and drawing materials will be provided, though feel free to bring your own
This workshop is FREE but places are limited so please RSVP to
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or +44 (0)151 707 2277
The Liverpool Art Prize
Now in its third year, the Liverpool Art Prize is an annual exhibition that showcases 5 of the best contemporary artists based in Liverpool. With a top prize of £2000, plus (new from this year) the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Walker Art Gallery at a later date. There will also be a £1000 People’s Choice Award chosen by the public voting at the gallery.
This year Artinliverpool.com, the top British art blog and founder and organiser of the annual Liverpool Art Prize, are working in partnership with Metal to host the exhibition at Edge Hill Station (the world’s oldest passenger station). During the period of the exhibition, working with other visual arts organisations across the city and other locally-based artists, there will be a Liverpool Open Studios weekend 12/13 June, artist talks, workshops, craft markets and other events. Full details will be announced on www.liverpoolartprize.com.
The 2010 finalists are Gina Czarnecki, David Jacques, James Quin, Paul Rooney (winner of the 2008 Northern Art Prize) and Emily Speed.
Previous winners are AL and AL and Imogen Stidworthy, with the People’s Choice prizes going to Elizabeth Willow (2009), and the Singh Twins (2008).
Exhibition Dates: 4 June to 10 July 2010 (Private Viewing Thursday 3 June 18.00 - 21.00)
Awards Ceremony: Wednesday 30 June 2010 18.00 – 20.00
Address: Platform 1, Edge Hill Station, Tunnel Road, Liverpool, L7 6ND
Opening hours: Tues - Fri 14.00 - 18.00 Sat 12.00 - 16.00
Directions to Edge Hill
Trains run regularly from Lime Street Station (approx. 4 every hour), Edge Hill Station is one stop from Lime Street. Buses run to Tunnel Road and Wavertree Road from Queens Square bus station. Bus numbers to Tunnel Road are 26 and 27, to Wavertree Road 14, 61, 78, 79, 79c and 79d.
Up to date travel information can be found at www.merseytravel.gov.uk.
There is limited free parking available on the cobbled approach leading to the station.
Link to a google map.
Download a pdf.
The Ballad of Juniper Davy and Sonny Lumière
The Ballad of Juniper Davy and Sonny Lumière is a specially commissioned performance of poetry and live music written by Rebecca Joy Sharp presented in collaboration with visual artist Elizabeth Willow (Liverpool Art Prize People's choice award 2009) and will take place from 11 - 15th May 2010 at Edge Hill Station.
Based in and around the historic railway station at Edge Hill, The Ballad of Juniper Davy and Sonny Lumière will tell a magical tale of invention and industry, hide and seek, love, mischief and dark imaginings. The performance will comprise poetry, live performance, an original score with visual installations and an accompanying exhibition.
Rebecca Sharp has been in residence at Metal’s new space at Edge Hill Station since the renovated buildings opened in the Autumn of 2009. Originally from Glasgow, Rebecca Sharp has played the lever (Celtic) harp for over fifteen years. She studied Theatre at Glasgow University, spent time in New York and Belfast before coming to reside in Liverpool in 2004. Spending her early career as a playwright she started combining her musical and writing activities to produce the harp and spoken-word pieces that now form the core of her practice as a performer. Among many things, she is inspired by folklore, memory, cities, sadness and magic. She continues to perform at venues and festivals throughout the UK and in April 2009 released her first EP of original lever harp compositions and spoken-word, The Mystery Workshop
Elizabeth Willow is a fine artist whose work includes sculpture, installation, intervention, writing and performance. Underpinning her practice is an abiding love of words, of poetry and stories; she draws upon dreams, myths and fairytales, symbolism and metaphor. She especially enjoys making work in a particular place, to spend time there, exploring and responding to its fabric and history, its potential for stories.
Tickets for 'Ballad of Juniper Davy and Sonny Lumière' go on sale on Tuesday 13th April. Tickets are priced at £7.00 full-price and £5.00 concession, available from News from Nowhere on Bold Street, by phone or in person - 0151 708 7270. Booking recommended due to limited capacity for each performance.
Performances will commence at 7.30pm with a 7.00pm arrival each evening. An accessible signed performance will take place as a matinee on 15 May with a 2.00pm arrival for 2.30pm performance.
A book of the text and CD of the score will be available to buy after each performance.
Directions to Edge Hill
Trains run regularly from Lime Street Station (approx. 4 every hour), Edge Hill Station is one stop from Lime Street. Buses run to Tunnel Road and Wavertree Road from Queens Square bus station. Bus numbers to Tunnel Road are 26 and 27, to Wavertree Road 14, 61, 78, 79, 79c and 79d.
Up to date travel information can be found at www.merseytravel.gov.uk.
There is limited free parking available on the cobbled approach leading to the station.
Link to a google map.
Download a pdf.
The Handmaiden
Leo Asemota came into residence at Metal, Liverpool in July 2009 to advance his longstanding work ‘The Ens Project’. Primarily informed by the Edo people of Benin’s ancient ‘Igue’ ritual of Head worship, the British Empire’s invasion of Benin in 1897 and the essay “An Artwork in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility” by the late German philosopher Walter Benjamin, the first phase of the project was concluded in 2008 with a sequence of performances in London: “ens memoralis” at the National Portrait Gallery and “The longMarch of Displacement” along the Victoria Embankment and at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Incorporating fragments and found objects recovered from the renovation project at Edge Hill station during his residency with influences from the project’s first phase developed in response to his experience in Liverpool, The Handmaiden is an installation for Edge Hill Station to mark the second phase of the project. Contained in four vitrines and governed by three drawings on vellum with lead, coal, orhue (kaolin), palm oil and beeswax, the creations unravel from myth, folklore and contemporary history, the origins of “The Handmaiden”, a being central to the completion of “The Ens Project”
The exhibition opens on 25th February and runs until 20th March 2010
Open Tues-Fri 2-6pm, Sat 12-4pm, or by appointment. Free admission
Part of Liverpool and the Black Atlantic, a series of exhibitions and events that explores connections between cultures and continents. Partners include, the Bluecoat, FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), The International Slavery Museum, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Metal, Tate Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Writing on the Wall, Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre and Liverpool University.
6 Marmaduke Street
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.
Exhibitions
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.
Winter Lights
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
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