Your Ultimate Guide to Christmas in Liverpool 🎄 
Art
How to get cultural in Liverpool during lockdown
4 years ago
We can’t get out to art galleries, literature festivals, book signings or concerts, all the things we typically enjoy in our culture-rich city.
Happily, local organizations and initiatives have put on their thinking caps and provided for us virtually. You can do so much more from the comfort of your sofa than you may think.
Sefton Borough of Culture
2021 is Sefton’s year as the Liverpool City Region’s Borough of Culture. The Reader is hosting a series of author events with Joanne Harris, Kei Miller and Max Porter on Zoom.
The sessions are open to all wherever you live, and in the first part of each participants will break out into small groups and spend an hour reading something by our guest author together, guided by a Reader Leader.
Then, following a short break, the author will read live and you can ask questions.
Free drawing activity sheets from METAL
Metal’s Consequences, co – created with artist Kate Genever, was a project to help women connect with each other through drawing. If you’re looking for a new way to link up with friends, family and your community whilst we are apart, free activity sheets from the project are available. The sheets are designed to encourage conversation and spark discussion whilst you draw.
You can download the sheets from the Consequences website here .There are also a limited number of printed worksheets available to send in the post. If you would like one, please email ruth@metalculture.com.
Africa Oye
Liverpool’s very own festival celebrating world music has kept the home fires burning, albeit digitally. Episode one of Nyumbani which takes its name from the Swahili word for ‘at home’ launched in December and features a concert and interview with Mauritanian singer-songwriter, festival alumnus Daby Touré. There is also a DJ set from Chief Commander Yaaba – the leader of London-based high life/afro-funk band, Yaaba Funk – who played the festival in both 2012 and in 2013.You can access Nyumbani over on YouTube. The debut edition was so well received that episode 2 is currently being put together.
Creative Spaces Co
Creative Spaces Co launched Writing for the Soul almost a year ago at the start of lockdown #1 and asked writers to share stories, poetry and thoughts from the collective sense of isolation. Two online zines full of new writing about the arrival of Covid 19, grappling with the new normal and how the pandemic has changed people, came out of the project. They are collections of writings from the soul, and are available to read for free
Open Eye Gallery
The physical Open Eye Gallery building may be closed presently but the gallery’s online programme will continue to be updated over the next few weeks with free live-streamed talks and online content. The virtual reality version of the current exhibition L— A City Through Its People is available now. A collaboration between photographer Ian Clegg and writer Laura Robertson, the image-text relationship reflects on the shifting nature of the city, and is made up of photographs that remained as negatives for forty decades.
Liverpool City Region Music Board
Founded in 2018, the Board supports the music sector across Merseyside and aims to cement the region’s position as one of the world’s music capitals. The twitter account is worth a follow, with details of opportunities and inspiring snippets of news and events to keep you up to date with the very latest.
Melodic Distraction
A digital impression of what Melodic Distraction’s new home could look like.
Melodic Distraction is an online community radio station, currently situated in Phase One on Seel St in the city centre. Melodic Distraction will move to Liverpool’s Fabric District later in the year, with new studios and a coffee shop built out of shipping containers as the result of a successful crowd funding campaign in December. The station has broadcast daily throughout the pandemic providing a reassuring voice with music and ongoing support for local creative culture and makers, with hosts broadcasting shows from their own homes during lockdown.
Milap: Music for the Mind & Soul
Milap is Britain’s leading Indian arts development trust, producing world class performances, education and artist development opportunities across the UK. The organization has just been nominated for the People’s Choice Award for Outstanding Contribution to Culture in this year’s Liverpool City Region Culture and Creativity Awards.
Milap’s concert series has 3 concerts to enjoy from home lined up in as many months. Starting on Saturday 30th January and taking place on the last Saturday of each month after that, the diverse programme includes examples of Jugalbandi which is a special type of Indian Classical music performance in which artists from very different musical traditions come together to duet.
TEDxLIPA
Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse team up with Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) as they host TEDxLIPA online on Sunday 31 January. The day-long conference hosts a series of speakers to include songwriter and footballer Chelcee Grimes, actress Amy Jackson, Grammy winning recording engineer and producer Trevor Gibson and more. They and their fellow innovators from the world of technology, entertainment and design will inspire conversation and make ideas stronger and more global.
Stay Creative with Bido Lito! and SAE Liverpool
Do you usually paint, write, read a lot but can’t get going because of lockdown? Liverpool’s Bido Lito! magazine is collaborating with SAE Liverpool Creative Media Institute to produce handy tips and advice to keep you creative and productive and creative when it gets difficult. So far, they have inspirational tips about writing, drawing, recording and more.
Follow Bido Lito! on Twitter here.
The Reader – poems and stories over the phone
Online activities aren’t for everyone so whilst we are unable to meet up in person, The Reader offer a service where you get a weekly phone call and hear poems and stories from a real live person, not a recording! If you’d like to receive calls email coronavirus@thereader.org.uk or call 0151 729 2250 to sign up.
The Reader is looking for volunteers for the project. You’ll receive full training and support to share poems and stories that are carefully chosen to be suitable for all. If you have the time to offer a friendly voice and a listening ear to someone who needs it, then get in touch!
Bring Tate into your house
Tate Liverpool might be closed right now but that doesn’t mean you can’t still experience what the gallery has to offer from the comfort of your own home. The Tate website is packed with resources like podcasts which give you an insight into the human stories behind the art, and tonnes of great crafty things the kids can get up to to up their art home school lessons.
Watch our Liverpool walk-throughs
From exploring the Linda McCartney exhibition at the Walker Gallery, immersing yourself back in to the 60’s at the Beatles Story and taking in the breath taking sights of Liverpool Cathedral and St George’s Hall. Watch our Walk though Liverpool videos below and enjoy the city form your sofa!
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