A mosaic rainbow bath you can get in is making a splash for Pride in Liverpool this weekend

A mosaic rainbow bath created to celebrate Pride has been making a splash at Arts Bar in the Baltic.

The cast iron rolltop was transformed by a Liverpool mosaic artist known as TitsUpArtist and will be on display until Pride in Liverpool on Saturday.

She spent weeks working on the disused bath to turn it into a fabulous interactive artwork which can be climbed into for a selfie.

The multi-coloured end result will be on display at the bar and then it’ll hopefully go on tour so even more people get to enjoy it.

Pride in Liverpool — Credit: Laura McCann

The exhibition was curated by photographer Laura McCann who’s been collaborating with Arts Bar over the past year to showcase local talent at their original Hope Street venue and now in Baltic.

She says: “This is something that was actually conceived back in February. I met TitsUpArtist when she was doing the mosaic signs for the Ukrainian Peace Garden in the Baltic.

“She’s from L8 and since she went back to mosaic art in lockdown she’s become a big advocate for working in the community to help other people’s mental health through art.

“I asked if she’d ever done anything in 3D, and then I suggested the bath because I was trying to think of something the public could get involved in, and I meant literally in!

“Arts Bar has always been very inclusive but it’s not traditionally seen as a gay venue so you’re going to have lots of straight people there, they might not necessarily want to totally immerse themselves in Pride but I liked the idea of being able to just dip in.

“No matter how you identify, getting in the rainbow bath is something anyone can do – it’s about losing those barriers, getting everyone involved and hopefully that will send out the message that we are an inclusive place and that art can bridge those gaps which sometimes you find in society.”

The logistics of moving a hugely heavy old bath into a bar wasn’t easy, which is why the artist created it in situ rather than in a studio.

She literally lay on the floor of an exhibition space in the bar for hours each day, over about three weeks, adding all the rainbow ceramic tiles.

The bath is going to be on display, and available for pics, until Sunday and it’s free to see although Laura says there is an opportunity to make a voluntary donation to Liverpool LGBTQ+ charity Sahir House.

Laura and the artist will be joining the Sahir House team on the Pride march through the city centre on Saturday then she plans to take the rainbow bath on a public space tour before auctioning it off with proceeds going to the charity.

Until then it’s open to view from 10am to 6pm each day this week and weekend, and Alex at Arts Bar says the response to it being there has been fantastic.

“This is our first interactive exhibition in the Baltic, and it’s been amazing to see the reaction to the bath, with so many people coming in, talking about it and asking the team if they can get pictures with it,” he adds. “It’s really raising awareness in a positive way and you can feel everyone getting excited for Pride this weekend.”

The artist says the bath is a fun and inclusive way to mark Pride in Liverpool.

“The mosaic bath installation, which is proudly supporting Sahir House, was created as a bit of interactive fun to celebrate this year’s Pride in our beautiful city. It was an artistic way of encouraging everyone to ‘dip themselves into Pride’ and enjoy celebrating diversity.”