As the city region’s cultural quarters begin to reopen, we roundup the best LGBT+ collections on site and online in the coming months. We will be updating this list as we receive updates, so please check back frequently!
Our region’s galleries and museums have had a rough few months, so if you do visit please support them with a donation or a positive review to help them get back on their feet!
LGBT+ Collections – National Museums Liverpool
The Walker Art Gallery, Museum of Liverpool, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Sudley House have an impressive array of LGBT+ related objects and art in their collections. These collections reflect historic and contemporary LGBT+ life, experiences and culture and offer new interpretations of the materials housed across its venues. They reveal the contributions of LGBT+ people in a range of fields, from music to art and design, to social activism and politics.
Not all of National Museums Liverpool will be reopening straight away, but the Walker Art Gallery and World Museum will be the first in the group to open in early July.
For updates and opening times, check here https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/
OUTPUT – Lois Teirney Spectrum
Re-opening on Saturday 4th July, OUTPUT gallery on Seel Street, will be showing Lois Tierney’s exhibition Spectrum, which was installed just before lockdown was announced. The gallery’s new opening hours are Thursday to Sunday (11am – 5pm) and entry is free.
You might remember Lois from their work with the Coming Out show at The Walker Art Gallery in 2017. There is no closing date for Spectrum planned as yet, but follow @outputgallery on Instagram for all gallery and exhibition updates.
Other venues planning re-openings are FACT Liverpool, with Picturehouse at FACT reopening on 31st July and FACT galleries returning from 12th August. The British Music Experience will reopen again from 1st August and Bluecoat is expected to be returning later this summer (with some of its retailers already open and trading again). Keep your eyes on their websites and social media channels for updates!
Online Arts
If your favourite gallery hasn’t reopened yet, or you’re not ready to visit public spaces, you can still get your creative fix, with a huge selection of online programmes!
Homotopia – Queer Art Always
You can still catch Homotopia’s Queer Art Always programme, which was the output from a £10,000 commission fund that was created in response to lockdown, which asked LGBTQIA artists to come up with art that could be enjoyed by audiences in a time of social distancing.
The festival will be back in Autumn 2020 and you can hear more about upcoming plans in our chat with festival director, Char Binns here.
The Royal Standard – UTOPIA
UTOPIA invites six artists to respond to the possible futures presented by our current global situation, as well as questions thrown up by the complex and contradicting nature of utopian ideals. Threads running through each of the selected commission projects include how collective thinking can activate social and economic change, the individual’s capacity to create their own utopia, and looking to the past to understand or reimagine the present and future.
It’s a fantastic programme, with each of the six artists’ projects being hosted on The Royal Standard’s landing page for three weeks at a time. We highly recommend Kiara Mohamed’s Founding Mother, running from 6th July, Liverpool-based drag artist, Brendan Curtis, from 27th July and Manchester-based visual artist, Bink Bulthaweenan from 7th September.
There’s more information about each artist and the line-up here: www.the-royal-standard.co.uk/utopia-artist-line-up
Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF)
The UK’s longest running annual festival of Arab arts and culture, LAAF goes online-only for the first time in its history in 2020. connecting artists and audiences from across the UK the 2020 programme runs from 9th – 18th July, featuring artist-in-residence, Lisa Luxx, cultural and social activist, playwright, and performance poet Dayna Ash, renowned Arabist Tim Mackintosh-Smith, award-winning, Palestinian-American author, poet, translator, artist and educator, Ibtisam Barakat.
There’s already a waitlist in place for Lisa and Dayna’s ‘night of poetic lesbian sisterhood’ but you can still catch Lisa Luxx ‘In Conversation’ on 14th July, if you’re quick!
For the full programme and booking, visit: www.arabartsfestival.com/2020festival/
Festival 31: Creative Connections
Festival 31 artists, arts organisations and supporters were asked to respond to the theme of Creative Connections and an exploration of what 31 can be, 31 days, 31 connections, 31 hours, 31 thoughts, 31 people, 31 countries, 31 smiles, 31 questions… Anything from a virtual meal, sharing recipes from where people of Liverpool’s refugee communities originate, to poetry and spoken word performances, dance, video, sound, comedy or music.
You can catch the 10 successful commissions online now, including Adrian Mejia’s VIDA In The Time Of Corona. Before the UK lockdown, gay asylum seeker Adrian Mejia began displaying symptoms of the virus but received little support. This mini documentary details his personal experience.
Find out more here on the Culture Liverpool website here: https://www.cultureliverpool.co.uk/festival31/
Bluecoat – Home by Kiara Mohamed
While you’re waiting for Bluecoat to reopen its doors, you can check out Kiara Mohamed’s film Home. Bluecoat worked with Kiara to get the film online and premiered it at Light Night this year. A powerful and poetic film, Home, uses spectacular drone footage shot above the artist’s L8 Toxteth neighbourhood in Liverpool. The film examines notions of home, vulnerability and care during the coronavirus pandemic. You can also watch and learn about Kiara’s previous work Black Flowers via Bluecoat’s website here.
Krewe Liverpool: Love Not Fear
Feeling inspired and want to create not just consume? Crewe Liverpool’s LOVE not FEAR is an open collaboration to create a digital community “vision board” of people’s hopes and visions of the new world, a place to plant the seeds and spread the message of the positive changes we want to see in our future through all creative mediums.
Krewe Liverpool is inviting contributions from artists, musicians, dancers, writers, illustrators, craftspeople and makers to create personal works in a positive response to the current global situation. You can submit your Vision of the Future here or browse the current work here.
Film With Pride – #FilmFridays
Last but most certainly not least, you can get your weekly short film fix every Friday from 5pm, through our #FilmFridays programme. Stay tuned to the Film With Pride Facebook page for new film information and updates.
