Artist Koki Tanaka with Emeka Onoura, Original participant of the Youth Training Scheme Protest in Liverpool
Once dubbed the New York of Europe, the unique port city of Liverpool has, over its history, been shaped by the diversity of international trade which passed through its once bustling docks. For its ninth edition, the Liverpool Biennial set its participating artists the challenge of examining the city’s past, present and future through six episodes – Ancient Greece, Chinatown, Children’s Episode, Software, Monuments of the Future and Flashback. With a plethora of international artists bringing new perspectives to Liverpool’s history and future, SLEEK spoke with Sally Tallant, the programme’s director, to better understand her motivations behind this year’s time-travelling offer.
What was your motivation behind the theme and why did you feel this episode of the Biennial was the right time to explore Liverpool as time-travelling adventurers?
After deciding to work collaboratively, the curatorial faculty started to think about how we could create a framework in which artists could make new work but which would necessitate a visit to Liverpool. Rather than trying to find a simplistic scene we started to think about what stories the city already tells and one way you can see the history of any city is through its architecture. Liverpool has a number of stories it tells quite clearly, for example, it was a powerful port city whose incredible moment of confidence is reflected in its aspirant neoclassical architecture, explored though our ancient Greece episode. The episodic structure was a loose framework within which artists could make work in response to but not constrained by the city’s narratives.
Liverpool Biennial 2016, Open Eye Gallery. Photo by Paul Karalius
“It feels very appropriate to be looking again at ancient Greece, where democracy was founded.”
Are there any artists who particularly surprised you with their contributions to this year’s theme?
The great thing about artists is that they come to the city with a different perspective and see things we might not have seen. Koki Tanaka’s project at Open Eye Gallery draws on the school children’s strike of 1985 which we didn’t previously know about, but Koki was so surprised by it that he wanted to pursue it. Sometimes outsiders see things that we don’t because they are right under our nose.
As part of the Ancient Greece episode, artefacts from the National Museum of Liverpool’s antiquities collection are exhibited beside new works by contemporary artists at Tate Liverpool. It’s a space in which ancient Greek and contemporary artists have collaborated but what motivated this collaboration?
The city’s art galleries and museums have some amazing paintings and sculptures in their collections, many brought back by the industrialists who built the city after they did the grand tour of Europe and Greece. The artefacts and relics they brought home, like those exhibited at Tate Liverpool now, are Roman copies of Greek artefacts pieced together by guides to sell to tourists. The guides knew tourists wanted complete statues so they just stuck heads and hands and feet inappropriately together to make entire figures.
The curatorial faculty liked this idea of piecing together an inappropriate history and provided an interesting starting point to look at how the history of the city is fabricated. By inviting contemporary artists to look again at this collection in a contemporary environment it allows us to see what stories they tell now. Given recent events in Europe, it feels very appropriate to be looking again at ancient Greece, where democracy was founded.
“Provisional Studies Action No.6,1985 School Students’ Strike”, 2016 (film still), by Koki Tanaka. Film Still Courtesy of Koki Tanaka.
For part of this year’s offer you have opened the doors to one of Liverpool’s iconic buildings for the first time in nearly 20 years, the Grade II listed ABC Cinema, which hosts part of the Flashback Episode. Liverpool and other international biennials often bring disused spaces back to life through temporary exhibitions, but did your desire to transport visitors and artists back to Liverpool’s past make obtaining such historic spaces more of a curatorial priority?
It is really interesting what spaces we should and can use. We have the museums and galleries which are great spaces and tell very particular stories but there are a lot of closed spaces in Liverpool which people don’t have the opportunity to see. It’s been a real struggle to get into the ABC, it’s a beautiful cultural space which people have fond memories of, but this is the last time people will get to see it like this before it is developed. It’s part of our remit to provide people with opportunities they might not otherwise have, including artists who get very excited about working in loaded spaces like the ABC.
For the first time you have commissioned artists to make new work with local children for the Chidren’s Episode. One of the artists who took up this challenge is Marvin Gaye Chetwynd who produced the film “Dogsy Ma Bone”. Was Chetwynd’s collaboration what you expected from this episode or was it a very different interpretation?
Childhood is an episode in all of our lives and we wanted artists to think about making work with and for children as the primary audience in a very serious way. I’ve known Marvin for a long time and knowing she would embrace the challenge wholeheartedly, gave her a very open brief which she took to the extreme. Marvin made the film a collaboration which went way beyond just collaborating with kids with a total of 78 young people and children involved and students from the local studio school making sets and shooting a lot of the film. It’s a great example of what can happen if you resource properly and believe that something amazing can happen if you support an artist to make this kind of work.
“Jesus and Barabbas puppet show”, 9 October 2014, by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd. Image Courtesy of Sadie Coles HQ, London. Copyright Marvin Gaye Chetwynd
“Dogsy Ma Bone”, 2016, by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd. Installation view at Cains Brewery, Liverpool Biennial 2016. Photo by Joel Chester Fildes
Liverpool Biennial 2016, Open Eye Gallery. Photo by Paul Karalius
“Provisional Studies Action No.6,1985 School Students’ Strike”, 2016 (film still), by Koki Tanaka. Film Still Courtesy of Koki Tanaka.
The Liverpool Biennial ends on 16 October 2016