1000+ artists, 135 events, 1 night. Welcome to LightNight Liverpool 2015, something a bit different to your normal Friday.
LightNight are imploring you to wander and wonder on Friday the 15th of May and do something out of the ordinary. They want you to bin the takeaway and the night in front of the box and navigate through Liverpool’s best venues and support a huge platform for the arts world. From print workshops to crossdressing photoshoots and film screenings to pom-pom making, there is something for everyone. There’s a massive team of people delivering it, Open Culture define themselves as the small arts organisation or ‘glue’ that co-ordinates, directs, curates and markets the event but couldn’t make it happen without their volunteers, participants and hosts. The theme around this year’s event is looking to the New World. What is next for humanity? Will we evolve and develop through technology, nature or both? LightNight is a huge night on the Liverpool calendar and a fun and profound reminder that arts and culture is for everyone. With so much to do, deciding can be quite difficult so we met up with LightNight and hand picked our top events that you can’t miss.
Baltic Triangle
Constellations (35-39 Greenland St, L1 0BS)
Cross Dress Portrait and Print Workshop (16.00-20.00): presented by GLORYBOX, Eclipse Dark Room and Hobo Bazaar. Go along, cross dress, get snapped and develop your new world family portrait yourself. Free
Disco Glitter Love (21.00-02.00): An exuberant evening of entertainment and dancing until late with LA producer and artist Baron Van Luxury and London based duo House of Disco. Donations on door.
Baltic Creative (49 Jamaica Street, L1 0AH)
LightNight at Baltic Creative (16.00-23.00): Liverpool’s vibrant creative and digital hub in the heart of the Baltic Triangle opens its doors with activities, exhibitions, guides tours and live music. Completely free and open and friendly family workshops. Free and family friendly.
Button Boutique (3 Brick Street, L1 0BL)
Mini Flower & Pom-Pom Mobiles (17.00-23.00): learn to create your own pom pos, paper flowers and hanging mobile, all in the surrounds of a cosy studio complete with a disco ball and Beyonce the goldfish. Free and family friendly.
Camp and Furnace (67 Greenland Street, L1 0BY)
LightNight Food Slam (16.00-2.00): the popular Food Slam returns with a New World twist. Part night market, part nightclub, this large-scale event is about quality street food and drink with live DJs. Free.
Fruit + Fibres Workshop Canteen & Workshop (67 Norfolk Street, L1 0BG)
Leaded LightNight (16.00-23.00): visitors of all ages can learn how to cut glass and contribute to a mosaic of Liverpool’s iconic skyline under the direction of Ruth Cave. There will also be unique LiverBird Scouse at the canteen. Free and family friendly.
Elevator Studios (25-27 Parliament St, L8 5RN)
Knack 90, Baltic Social Ground Floor (16.00-23.00): Knack 90 is an exhibition giving local creatives the opportunity to display and sell their awesome work. Free.
CITY CENTRE
Gostins Building (32-36 Hanover St, L1 4LN)
Liver Sketching Club Open Night & Exhibition (16.00-21.00): visit the studio of England’s oldest art club and join in by drawing a live model. Free and family friendly.
Liverpool Small Cinema & The Atrium Gallery (57-59 Victoria St, L1 6DD)
Short Film Screening – One Minute Vol.8 (16.00-23.00): Liverpool Small Cinema presents a special rolling screening of super-short short-film. Each films lasts no longer than 60 seconds. Free.
The Futurist (61-71 Lime St, L1 1JQ)
Tony Mallon: If Only It Could Speak (24hrs a day): public realm exhibition of Tony Mallon’s project concerning homelessness. The images shown depict how Britain provides care for the homeless from a range of shelter providers in Merseyside. Free
Liverpool Quaker Meeting House (22 School Lane, L1 3BT)
Pom-Pom Project (18.00-20.30): this workshop gives everyone the chance to pause, allowing the mind to relax and give people the mental space to connect. We never stop in our busy world and this is a cool way to do it by making something relatively simple yet beautiful. Free and family friendly.
Rococo (61 Lord St, L2 6PB)
Alice in Rococo (17.30-19.00): join Altru Children’s Theatre for a pop up tea party at Rococo; sample delicious treats from a specially themed menu, while meeting characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. 10% of all takings go to keeping Altru Arts CIC going and working with young people. Free and family friendly.
Hope Street Quarter
92 Degrees Coffee (24 Hardman St, L1 9AX)
Light Roast (18.00-23.00): Draw & Code bring art and technology together to create beautiful experiences: for LightNight they will be illuminating 92 Degrees Coffee using immersive technology such as augmented reality and projection mapping. Free and family friendly.
Blackburne House (Blackburne Place, L8 7PE)
Open House (17.00-23.00): Blackburn House are putting on a night market, hot food from their award winning cafe, live music and plenty of Liverpool Real Organic Ale. There will also be evening tours around their Grade 2-listed buIlding. Free and family friendly.
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (Hope St, L1 9BP)
Celebrating 175 years (18.30-20.00): A unique musical experience harking back to the founding of the organisation in 1840. Free.
Ropewalks
News From Nowhere (96 Bold St, L1 4HY)
Looking to the Indigenous New World (17.00-21.00) A night celebrating the indigenous people of the Americas and serious debates in a playful world in an incredible book shop. Expect book displays, politics and revolutionary refreshments.
The Cow&Co Cafe (15 Cleveland Sq, L1 5BE)
The 100/100 Beer Project (16.00-22.00): Join Cow&Co as they exhibit beautifully designed beer labels from 100 different artists curated by SB Studio and serve up coffee-based cocktails, craft beer and live acoustic jazz sounds from Alan Jeff. Free.
The Brink (15-21 Parr St, L1 4JN)
Acting Up (18.30-19.00 & 20.30-21.00): Acting Up is a creative group of disabled young people aged 12-25 who meet weekly to work together exploring different aspects of art. This short performance uses drama, shadow puppetry and Makaton. Free.
Waterfront
Open Eye Gallery (19 Mann Island, L3 1BP)
Light Packets (16.00-19.00): a lantern workshop for all ages and after-dark installation by Urban Canvas & Open Culture inspired by the cargo packet ships that travelled between Liverpool & the New World. Packet boats used to carry mail and each lantern will contain a hand written message and be symbolically launched onto the canal basin to create a beautiful and colourful floating light installation. Free and family friendly.
Tate (Albert Dock, Waterfront, L3 4BB)
The Soup Course (16.00-20.00): The Soup collective have hidden their artworks around the gallery, in unexpected places. Take a map and follow in their footsteps – prizes to be won if you find all the artworks. Free and family friendly.
LOOK/15: Exchange Launch (20.00-22.00): with LOOK/15 International Photography Festival launching with exhibition previews across the city on LightNight, this launch event offers an audio-visual night of images, sound installations and DJing presented by international artist Anna Fox. Free.
Make sure you check out Open Culture’s Commission too called Hex//Light DiVision. You can find it at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral at (20.35), University Square (Opposite Victoria Gallery, 21.20), Pier Head (22.20) and William Brown Street (23.20). The Harlequin Dynamites and collaborates are looking to the New World with a live hypnotic science fiction ritual. Through a mesmerising display of light, music and movement, the polarised visions of the future to seek harmony between technology and nature. It is free and family friendly.
This is just a tiny snapshot of what is happening all over the city on Friday 15th of May. LightNight are urging people to buy their beautifully designed and hand-held booklet as all the money goes into making the next event even bigger and better than the year before. Get them here. If not, you can collect them from all venues or at their very own hub at Rodney House on Mount Pleasant. Like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and find out about all things happening at their website.
Enjoy your Friday, whatever you end up doing.