Arts and Culture
Discover the best of arts and culture in Liverpool, featuring exhibitions, interviews, and cultural events celebrating the city’s creative spirit.
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Mark Thomas Brings 40 Years of Comedy, Campaigning and Chaos to Liverpool
At 22, Mark Thomas wasn’t thinking about where he might be in 40 years. He was thinking about doing as much stand-up as possible, keeping his day job working on a building site with his dad and, when pressed to contemplate the distant future, apparently imagining himself “dead in a hot tub.” Four decades later, the hot tub has thankfully failed to materialise, while the comedy career has expanded into something considerably bigger, stranger and more consequential than even…
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Poetry Without Boundaries: Anne Vegter and Astrid Alben Come to Liverpool
Anne Vegter has spent more than three decades refusing to keep poetry in a single box. Her work moves between the playful, the erotic, the enigmatic and the disturbing, often finding its energy in the uncomfortable spaces between them. On Thursday 19 November, the Dutch poet, writer and former Poet Laureate comes to Liverpool alongside poet and translator Astrid Alben, in an event presented in partnership with independent publisher Prototype. Part of New Dutch Writing, supported by the Dutch …
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Open Eye Gallery Exhibition Explores The Healing Power Of Nature And Creativity
A powerful new exhibition exploring the role of nature and creativity in helping women heal from trauma and abuse is coming to Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery from 6 November to 20 December 2026. Fractured Landscapes and How We Heal brings together new photographic work by artist Jaskirt Dhaliwal-Boora alongside artwork created by women from four refuges across the UK, exploring how creative expression can support recovery from trauma, particularly in the context of male violence…
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52 for 26 Poetry Project: Tim Fletcher
Before the Internet, We Managed Just Fine: So What Changed? We talk a lot about convenience these days. The one-click life. Groceries at the doorstep, banking without the queue, a world delivered rather than encountered. But Tim Fletcher isn’t convinced that this shiny, streamlined existence is the progress we pretend it is. His contribution to the Poetry Project 52 for 26 turns its gaze toward the hollowing-out of our daily interactions, and the creeping strangeness…
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52 for 26 Poetry Project: Colin Watts
From London to the Mersey: A Poet Who Found His True Home A certain magic happens when someone arrives in Liverpool and instantly feels at home; it’s as if the city has been quietly keeping a seat warm for them. For Colin Watts, that moment happened half a century ago, when he swapped London for the banks of the Mersey and immediately sensed the pulse of a place that runs deeper than postcodes or accent.…
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Brendan Lyons Brings Reel to Real to Birkenhead’s Hamilton Vault
Paint escapes the canvas as Brendan Lyons plays with perception, material and the architecture of an extraordinary space. A former bank vault beneath Hamilton Square in Birkenhead seems an appropriately strange place to encounter the work of Brendan Lyons. Concrete walls, concrete floors and the lingering suggestion of what the space once contained provide considerably more than a backdrop for Reel to Real, his new solo exhibition in Birkenhead. For an artist who has spent much of his practice asking…
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Creative Spotlight: Prof. Seán Street
Seán Street: Eighty Years of Curiosity and the Art of Paying Attention… A four-year-old boy stands in a garden in Wittering, Sussex, as the summer light begins to fade. Beyond the garden is woodland and, from somewhere among the trees, comes a scream. Perhaps a fox, perhaps an owl killing some smaller creature; whatever made it, the boy doesn’t know. What matters is that he hears it, wonders about it, and remembers. More than seven…
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52 Ways of Seeing: Liverpool Noise Launches Art 52 for 27
One year, 52 artists and 52 different ways of looking at the world. A year is a surprisingly useful unit of measurement. Long enough for something to develop its own character, short enough to retain a sense of momentum and, conveniently, made up of 52 weeks. Throughout 2026, Liverpool Noise used those weeks to publish 52 poems by 52 poets. 52 for 26 began with a very simple idea: each week we would give one poet a little space…
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52 for 26 Poetry Project: Patrick Long
A Moment of Calm in the Midst of Chaos: Poetry from Recovery Patrick Long’s poem for Project 52 for 26 is a quiet, unflinching snapshot of a moment both ordinary and extraordinary. Penned a few months into recovery, it captures the fragile space between fear and relief, between anxiety and an almost accidental serenity. It’s Liverpool, but not in the usual landmarks of heritage or nightlife. This is Liverpool ONE, outside the changing rooms of…
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Mandela8: Journey to South Africa – Liverpool’s Young Filmmakers Follow in Mandela’s Footsteps
More than 6,000 miles separate Liverpool from Cape Town, but for a group of young filmmakers from Liverpool 8, a journey to South Africa offered something considerably more meaningful than distance: the opportunity to encounter the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela in the country where that extraordinary story unfolded, and to discover what it might mean to a generation born into a very different world. Their experiences have become Mandela8: Journey to South Africa, a documentary screening at…
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Joe Campbell On Culture City, Creative Relationships and Why Good People Remain At The Heart of Everything
There was a point in Joe Campbell’s life when the future of Culture City had to compete with the considerably more immediate demands of stacking shelves in Morrisons. University occupied the daytime, supermarket shifts took care of the evenings, and whatever remained belonged to the increasingly consuming business of filming bands, interviewing artists and discovering, largely by doing it, how to make the kind of work he wanted to make. Then The Anfield Wrap came…
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Comedian Alex Tighe On Anxiety, Second Chances And The Strange Magic of Making Strangers Laugh
Long before Alex Tighe thought seriously about becoming a comedian, he discovered what it felt like to make a room laugh entirely by accident. He was around 14, sitting in a Spanish lesson, a painfully shy teenager who reckons half the class had probably never heard him speak. Somewhere next door came the sudden crash of a table. Before he had time to stop himself, Tighe announced: “Sounds like Miss next door has fallen over…
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52 for 26 Poetry Project: Charlie Lambert
A Day to Live, a Day to Die: Poetry as a Countdown on Climate Charlie Lambert’s contributing poem for Project 52 arrives with the kind of quiet force that catches you off guard. It begins not with catastrophe, but with a question many of us have pushed to the edges of our minds: what happens when the countdown on climate change is no longer theoretical? Lambert is struck by how calmly we talk about rising temperatures, melting ice,…
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52 for 26 Poetry Project: Toni Burns
Toni Burns – Stars, Self-Worth, and the Space We All Deserve to Shine In In There Might Be Others (and still, I’m here), Toni Burns traces a quietly luminous line between the cosmic and the personal. The spark arrives in an unlikely moment: a priest at Liverpool Cathedral wondering aloud about life beyond Earth, and whether the presence of “others”—whoever they may be—would diminish the goodness of God. His answer is a gentle, resonant no.…
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Exhibition Honours Chinese Medical Pioneer Dr Yan Fuqing in Liverpool
A new exhibition exploring the life and legacy of Dr Yan Fuqing, a University of Liverpool alumnus and a pioneer of modern Chinese medicine, opened at Liverpool Medical Institution on 22 September 2026. Dr Yan: A Pioneer – A Bridge of Sino-British Medical and Cultural Exchange is the exhibition’s first European presentation, following its debut in South Africa. Jointly presented by Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Jiefang Daily and the University of Liverpool, it…
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Becky Beasley’s A Gentle Man (Part II) Comes To The Bluecoat
An exhibition that begins beneath your feet and eventually arrives at the subject of dying is clearly asking rather more of its audience than simply to look… Opening at Bluecoat this September, Becky Beasley’s A Gentle Man (Part II) (1975– 2029) brings together photography, sculpture, ceramics, furniture and moving image within an installation that transforms the gallery into what Bluecoat describes as a “contemplative and immersive landscape”. It is an ambitious proposition, concerned not only with the…
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Liverpool Independent Art School At 10: This Is What Art School Was Supposed To Be Like
There is a story about Liverpool Independent Art School (LIAS) that probably tells you more about its philosophy than any mission statement ever could. It involves two artists, a load of drawing equipment, Sefton Park and lots and lots of rain… Founders Paul Gatenby and his colleague Tony O’Connell had been teaching at what was then the Community College for almost twenty years when they began to feel increasingly uncomfortable with the direction education was…
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Poetry on the Fringe: Give Poetry A Chance Returns to The Ship & Mitre
Give Poetry A Chance (GPAC) began, by Dan Cullinan’s own admission, without any grand plan to become a Liverpool poetry institution. He started writing poems as thoughts in the notes section of his phone and had never intended to become a poet, let alone an event organiser. Yet since 2019, Give Poetry A Chance has developed into a regular platform for Liverpool’s poetry community, bringing together established voices, emerging writers and audiences in an environment that feels deliberately different…
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Milap Unveil Autumn 2026 Season in Liverpool Featuring The World’s Finest Indian Artists
The UK’s leading Indian Arts organisation Milap continue to pave the way for Indian live music and dance in Liverpool this Autumn, announcing a fresh roster of the world’s finest Indian musicians, unique collaborations and rare instruments. Kicking things off in October, Milap’s very own ensemble Tarang present bespoke arrangements of new contemporary Indian music, as part of The Tung Auditorium’s lunchtime concert series on Wednesday 7 October. Tarang at The Tung Auditorium. Credit: Alan Blundell Tarang is an innovative…
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Homotopia Festival 2026 Returns to Liverpool with ‘We Come Together’
Liverpool’s Homotopia Festival is back this autumn, bringing more than six weeks of LGBTQIA+ arts and culture to venues across the city. Returning for its 22nd year from 17 October to 1 December 2026, the UK’s longest-running LGBTQIA+ arts and culture festival will present We Come Together – a programme spanning theatre, performance, visual art, film, music, club nights and conversation. This year’s festival will open with a celebration of another major milestone in Liverpool’s…
Liverpool has long been recognised as one of the UK’s most creative cities, with a thriving arts and culture scene that continues to inspire, innovate, and attract visitors from across the globe. From world-class art galleries and museums to grassroots exhibitions, community-led projects, and bold new work from emerging artists, the city offers an ever-changing landscape of creativity.
Our arts and culture in Liverpool section celebrates everything from major cultural moments to intimate creative experiences. Here, you’ll find coverage of the city’s most exciting art exhibitions, from Tate Liverpool’s thought-provoking contemporary shows to Bluecoat’s pioneering visual arts programme and FACT’s boundary-pushing exploration of digital culture. We also shine a spotlight on independent galleries and artist-run spaces, such as Output Gallery and dot-art, which champion local talent and give a platform to Liverpool’s diverse artistic voices.
But arts and culture in Liverpool is about more than exhibitions. It’s also about the stories behind the artists, curators, and cultural leaders who shape the city. Through interviews, features, and opinion pieces, we explore the inspirations, challenges, and creative journeys of those contributing to Liverpool’s cultural life. Whether it’s an established painter, a theatre director, or a multidisciplinary artist experimenting with new forms, we share their perspectives and amplify their work.
Liverpool’s cultural calendar is packed with must-see events, and this section keeps you up to date with the highlights. From visual arts festivals like Liverpool Biennial, to multi-arts celebrations such as Africa Oyé and Homotopia, we cover the festivals and events that bring people together and reflect the city’s spirit of creativity and inclusion. Alongside these larger-scale happenings, we also look at grassroots cultural activity—pop-up exhibitions, open studios, and collaborative community projects that keep the city’s cultural identity vibrant and alive.
The city’s strong cultural foundations, built on its history as a UNESCO City of Music and European Capital of Culture 2008, continue to fuel innovation. Today, arts and culture in Liverpool is about creating accessible, inclusive, and exciting opportunities for everyone to experience creativity. Whether you’re interested in traditional painting and sculpture, cutting-edge digital installations, performance art, or cultural heritage, Liverpool offers something for every taste.
By exploring this section, you’ll discover not only what’s on, but also gain insights into why the arts matter here and now. Liverpool’s artists and cultural organisations are shaping important conversations about identity, diversity, community, and the future—and we’re here to share their stories.
So whether you’re planning your next gallery visit, looking to discover a new artist, or simply want to stay connected with the heartbeat of Liverpool’s creative scene, this category is your guide to everything happening in arts and culture across the city.