Liverpool International Photography Festival
LOOK/13, the second edition of Liverpool’s international photography biennial, will be launched on 17 May 2013. Our event-packed opening weekend kicks off a four-week programme of exhibitions, talks and tours, workshops, competitions and screenings. Most of the festival’s key exhibitions continue throughout the summer, while LOOK/13’s Parallel Programme, listed in full on the festival’s website, rounds up an impressive array of independent and fringe activities.
LOOK/13 presents work by emerging and established artists from Liverpool, the UK and beyond. It combines historical exhibitions with contemporary solo and group shows. Every exhibition in the core programme has been produced specifically for the festival; the majority of work on display is new or is being show for the first time in the UK.
Liverpool offers the strongest collection of visual arts spaces of any regional city in the country. LOOK/13’s key sites include the Bluecoat (a visitor information hub for the festival), the Walker Art Gallery, Open Eye Gallery,Victoria Gallery & Museum and the Art & Design Academy. All are in the city centre, within easy walking distance of each other. The festival’s Parallel Programme can be found in a host of established and informal spaces, with a small number of sites outside Liverpool city centre in Everton, Runcorn and Chester.
LOOK/13: Who do you think you are?
The theme of LOOK/13 is summed up in the question ‘who do you think you are?’. The festival’s programme looks at what happens when we turn the camera on ourselves and others to create images of identity, subjectivity and the self.
The question is a vital one for photography, which is deployed in a multitude of ways to construct, explore and project such images. Since its beginnings in the nineteenth century the medium has expanded and evolved to assume a presence in every part of our lives, in ways that point to wider philosophical debates about human autonomy and the nature of the self. In recent years photographs have become enmeshed in our daily lives in ways that we are only beginning to understand.
The theme has a special resonance in Liverpool, which has long asserted for itself an identity that is proudly independent of its national context. Liverpudlians see themselves as different, and they see their home as a kind of city state. Perceived from the outside, the image of Liverpool has shifted in recent years but continues to provoke, fascinate and otherwise command the attention of those outside the city.
The programme of LOOK/13 offers a series of glimpses into current and historic photographic practice. Each venue has produced a unique response to the central theme which is firmly rooted in its own circumstances and concerns. Our ambition has nonetheless been to bind each individual element into a greater whole.
At the Bluecoat, Sander/Weegee: Selections from the Side Photographic Collection brings together two of the most celebrated and influential figures of twentieth century photography. August Sander attempted to produce a sociological portrait of pre-war German society in all its complexity; Weegee, a prolific newspaper photographer in New York projected the city’s dark, phantasmagoric visage of the city that spanned more than three decades.
I exist (in some way), the Bluecoat’s second exhibition, features the work of eleven photographers who explore constructions of personal and collective identity in the contemporary Arab world. Last but not least at the Bluecoat,Identity Documents is a smaller exhibition by Liverpool-based photographer Adam Lee, looking at what our bookshelves reveal and conceal about us.
The Walker also presents three exhibitions for LOOK/13. Double Take: Portraits from The Keith Medley Archive presents the work of a press and commercial photographer who worked on Merseyside from 1950 until the late 1980s. The exhibition focuses on studio portraits made by exposing two halves of a single glass plate in close succession, an unusual technique maintained by Medley long after it was obsolete. The double portraits offer a fascinating glimpse of how each sitter performed for the camera; with the passage of time they have also acquired a distinctly uncanny quality.
Also at the Walker, an exhibition of early work by two of Merseyside’s most compelling chroniclers, Martin Parr and Tom Wood. Every Man and Woman is a Star focuses on rarely-seen work from the late 1970s and 1980s, most of it made in Merseyside as both photographers were developing their highly distinctive and influential signature styles.
The Walker’s third exhibition for LOOK/13 is based on a new commission by Rankin. Alive: in the Face of Death presents portraits of people with terminal illnesses. The project is a major departure for Rankin, who is best known for his celebrity portraits and fashion work. To make this series, he collaborated with his subjects, enabling each of them to take control and create a unique image.
Themes of mortality also echo through BLACKOUT, an international group exhibition at the Art & Design Academy’s Exhibition Research Centre. BLACKOUT examines the inner and outer boundaries of human subjectivity through the work of four contemporary artists, focusing on the unstable relationship between the viewer and (photographic) subject.
At the Victoria Gallery & Museum, Kurt Tong presents the first full realisation of his autobiographical project The Queen, the Chairman and I. Presenting his own photographs and writing alongside objects from the personal archives of his extended family, Tong tracks an extraordinary century of migrations and habitations. The artist was himself born in Hong Kong, but grew up in the UK and studied in Liverpool. The project grew out of his desire to talk to his young daughters about who they are and where they come from.
Two exhibitions at Open Eye Gallery reflect on identity as it is constructed and performed, and on the tensions that exist between the self and its representation. Charles Fréger’s The Wild and the Wise considers group identity, examining the codes of self-presentation that are woven into everyday life as well as those that are self-consciously performed. Eva Stenram, in her series Drape, presents subtly manipulated erotic photographs from the 1960s and 1970s, pointedly intervening between subject and viewer.
Wolstenholme Creative Space (in temporary residence at Drop the Dumbells gallery) presents Rob Bremner’s Liverpool, Unfinished, a previously unseen body of work that returns us to the surprisingly colourful streets of Liverpool in the second half of the 1980s. Picking up the thread a generation later, The Caravan Gallery document the reality and surreality of life on the streets of present-day Merseyside. Watch out for their appearances around the city throughout the festival, and don’t miss their exhibition Merseystyle at the Museum of Liverpool.
Who’s behind LOOK/13?
The festival’s delivery team is led by Director Patrick Henry and Festival Manager Harjeet Kaur.
LOOK/13’s programme is created in partnership with the city’s leading museums and galleries, alongside a range of national and international partners. The festival draws its strength primarily from its partners’ creativity, generosity, hard work and capacity for collaboration.
LOOK/13 would like to thank its contributing curators: Imogen Stidworthy (Art & Design Academy, Liverpool John Moores University), Mark Durden and Ken Grant (University of Wales, Newport), Moira Lindsay (Victoria Gallery & Museum), Sara-Jayne Parsons (the Bluecoat), Graeme Rigby (Side Gallery, Newcastle), Jim Stephenson (Miniclick), Simon Bainbridge (British Journal of Photography), Lorenzo Fusi (Open Eye Gallery), Caroline Smith and Priya Sharma (Wolstenholme Creative Space), Sandra Penketh, Pauline Rushton, Myra Brown and Charlotte Keenan (Walker Art Gallery), Sharon Brown (Museum of Liverpool),
Annie Lord (National Museums Liverpool).
LOOK has its roots in LOOK07, a season of events initiated by Redeye in Manchester in spring 2007. Later that year a group of North West-based photographers – all active members of Redeye – began work on plans for an international photography biennial in Liverpool.
LOOK/13 would like to extend special thanks to the following people:
Ceri Hand, Hannah Pierce, Rachel Goodsall, Laura Parker, Katie Lucas, Karen Newman, Thomas Dukes, Eleanor Suggett, Julia Garcia, Joanna Rowlands, Rhiannon Butlin, Rachael Bampton-Smith, Antony Hudek, Rachel Carr, Juan Cruz, Sandra Penketh, Dickie Felton, Paul Lowe, Mark Sealy, Fiona Rogers, Francesco Manacorda, Duke Street Espresso, Bold Street Coffee, Omar Kholief, Sophie Jung, Melody Beard, Daniel Cutmore, Jane Beardsworth, Stephen Snoddy, Andrew Thomas, Matt Biagetti, Benji Holroyd, Rachel Veniard, Emma Pettit and Stephanie Knox.
LOOK/13 would like to thank festival interns Gemma Sands, Stephen Fallows, Alistair Blake, Sarah Brothers, and all the fantastic volunteers for their dedication and support.
PARALLEL PROGRAMME
LOOK/13’s Parallel Programme rounds up an array of independent and fringe activities, offering a vibrant counterpart to the curated festival programme. Exhibitions can be found in a host of established and informal spaces, from museums to cafes and empty shops.
The Parallel Programme features online projects and publications alongside solo and group exhibitions, newly commissioned projects
and public realm installations.
The majority of Parallel Programme shows are located in Liverpool City Centre, but notable exceptions include exhibitions by Ken Grant at Beaconsfield Community Centre, Tom Wood at Contemporary Art Space, Chester and (from 25 May) Nick Danziger at The Brindley, Runcorn.
On the LOOK/13 website all Parallel Programme exhibitions are distinguished from the festival programme by a /PP logo in the bottom right hand corner of their thumbnail image.
COLIN MCPHERSON (CHAIR)
Colin is a photojournalist and documentary photographer. As well as covering news and current affairs for leading newspapers and magazines, he has initiated a number of independent long-term projects. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the UK and abroad, both in group and solo shows.
LAWRENCE GEORGE GILES
Lawrence is a practicing artist and Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader (BA Photography and MA Communication Design) at the University of Salford. His academic and practical research interests focus on the extended impact of new technologies in design and the visual arts.
PAUL HERRMANN
Paul is a freelance editorial photographer and Director of Redeye, the Photography Network. Paul also writes and talks on professional issues for photographers such as copyright, fees and business, sits on the British Photographic Council, and is an adviser to Skillset, where he was vice chair of the Photo Imaging Council.
COLIN HUGHES
Colin is a Management Accountant at the University of Liverpool, where he has worked in a number of related roles over the last 11 years. He is currently playing a key part in the strategic development of the University’s student residences and commercial businesses.
ADAM LEE
Adam is a freelance photographer and workshop facilitator based in Liverpool UK. He works regularly for the international charity PhotoVoice and with Halton Borough Council’s Special Educational Needs Department
SARA-JAYNE PARSONS
Before joining the Bluecoat as Exhibitions Curator in 2006, Sara-Jayne taught as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Visual Arts at the University of North Texas, where she was also Assistant Director of the University Galleries. She is currently completing a PhD in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.
JOHN SUTCLIFFE
John is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Surveyor who was appointed as Chair of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce in September 2012. He is Managing Director of Sutcliffe, a multi-disciplinary practice in Liverpool which he founded in 1985.
LOOK/13's main venues are in Liverpool city centre, close to major
transport hubs and within easy walking distance of each other.
Key festival sites include the Bluecoat, The Walker Art Gallery,
Open Eye Gallery, the Museum of Liverpool, Victoria Gallery & Museum
and the Exhibition Research Centre.
Parallel Programme sites can be found in a range of established
and informal spaces, with a small number of exhibitions outside
Liverpool city centre in Everton, Runcorn and Chester.
The festival's visitor information hub can be found in the foyer
of the Bluecoat.
Please call in for information about the festival,
programme brochure etc.
The Bluecoat
School Lane
Liverpool L1 3BX
Someone will be able to help you Monday – Sunday 10am – 6.00pm.
Getting to Liverpool
Liverpool is well connected. Now only two and a half hours from London, 100 minutes from Birmingham and 50 minutes from Manchester.
TrainThe mainline train station, Liverpool Lime Street, is in the heart of the city centre. Virgin Trains offer an hourly direct high-speed service from London Euston in a little over two hours.
Book in advance at www.nationalrail.co.uk for the cheapest fares.
BusAll major coach services serve Liverpool and Merseytravel connects you to local and regional bus services. For more info call 0871 200 22 33 (8am – 8pm daily).
RoadLiverpool is at the end of the M62 and easily reached from North Wales, Chester, the Lake District and beyond. By car Liverpool is approximately 50 minutes from Manchester, 1hr 25 minutes from Leeds, 1hr 45 minutes from Sheffield and Birmingham.
AirLiverpool John Lennon Airport is served by over 50 airlines flying in from over 100 destinations. It is 9 miles southeast of the City Centre connected by the Airlink 500 bus service which runs every 20 minutes.
TaxiMake use of Liverpool’s extensive Black Cab service or pre-book with Mersey Cabs (0151 238 1234) or INTX Cars (0151 727 7000).
For all your visitor needs visit www.visitliverpool.com.
HotelsLOOK/13 is proud to support local businesses, please find a list
of selected independent hotels below.
Liverpool has a number of budget hotels, please follow the links
for further information.
TRAVEL LODGE
JURYS INN
NOVOTEL
IBIS
PREMIER INN
For all your accommodation enquiries please call the Visit Liverpool Accommodation Hotline on: +44 (0)151 237 3895
For all tourist information enquiries please visit VisitLiverpool.com or call +44 (0)151 233 2008
This section contains LOOK/13's current press releases and other
media resources.
For all press enquiries please email:
Stephanie Knox
[email protected]
Office:
+ 44 (0)207 923 2861
Press images and image credits are available to download from the website. Please contact Stephanie Knox for access information.
Partners
Principal Funders
LOOK/13
We'd love to hear from you if you have any questions, comments
or feedback about Liverpool International Photography Festival.
Send us an email:
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LOOK/13
14 Cumberland Avenue
Liverpool L17 2AQ
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Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales
LOOK/11
Liverpool, 13 May – 26 June 2011
LOOK/11 was set against the backdrop of Liverpool’s Year of Social Justice and City of Radicals. The festival showcased significant new bodies of photographic work alongside retrospective exhibitions around the theme of photography as a 'call to action'. The festival asked people to stop, think, examine and debate, posing questions about
the role of photographers in the current social, economic and
political climate.
Download Brochure (PDF, 1.2mb)
LOOK/07
Manchester, 13 April – 31 May 2007
LOOK/07 was conceived by Redeye and was a programme of activities concerned with the revolution in photography. As camera ownership was skyrocketing worldwide, LOOK/07 described what people were saying with this new language, who was making the most interesting pictures, who was looking at them, how the public were using photography as a new means of expression, and the place of the professional photographer
in all this.
