Art Against the World – Details, episodes & analysis

How do biennial curators weave a narrative out of diverse artworks? Liverpool Biennial Director Sam Lackey shares her experience; curator Manuela Moscoso discusses the process behind Liverpool Biennial 2021. Presenter Vid Simoniti. Liverpool Biennial 2021 www.biennial.com

LINKS
Liverpool Biennial 2021: find out more about the artists and the exhibition
Twitter: Liverpool Biennial / Vid Simoniti
Instagram: Liverpool Biennial

Works mentioned:

Sam Lackey

Neo Muyanga – A Maze in Grace (forthcoming at Liverpool Biennial)

Anthony Gormley – Another Place (2005)

Koo Jeong A – Evertro (Everton Park Skatepark) (2015)

Teresa Solar – Osteoclast (forthcoming at Liverpool Biennial)

Linder Sterling – The Ultimate Form (2012) exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield

Manuela Moscoso

Oswald de Andrade: Manifesto Antropófago (1928)

Jorge Manuela Barreto – Environmental Sculpture (forthcoming at Liverpool Biennial)

Neo Muyanga – A Maze in Grace (forthcoming at Liverpool Biennial)

Art that imagines alternative futures and pasts. Artist Larry Achiampong discusses the legacies of Afrofuturism today, while Luisa Ungar’s debates the role of fiction in the archive. We are joined by the critic Pablo Larios. Presenter Vid Simoniti. Liverpool Biennial 2021 www.biennial.com

LINKS
Liverpool Biennial 2021: find out more about the artists and the exhibition
Twitter: Liverpool Biennial / Vid Simoniti
Instagram: Liverpool Biennial 

Larry Achiampong
Relic Traveller Phase 1 and 2 (2017-19)
https://www.larryachiampong.co.uk/projects/relic-traveller-phase-1

https://www.larryachiampong.co.uk/projects/relic-traveller-phase-2

Luisa Ungar
Guided Zoo Visits (2012)
Dominion of Extinction (2018)
Pavilion (2017)
https://issuu.com/deluxu/docs/ungar_portafolio_reciente

commentator Pablo Larios

Art that portrays seas and migration. Alberta Whittle’s new video unearths links between climate change and colonialism. Invernomuto’s sound installation traces the influences of the Black diaspora on the Mediterranean culture. We are joined by curator Elvira Dyangani Ose. Presenter Vid Simoniti. Liverpool Biennial 2021 www.biennial.com

LINKS
Liverpool Biennial 2021: find out more about the artists and the exhibition
Twitter: Liverpool Biennial / Vid Simoniti
Instagram: Liverpool Biennial 

Works featured

Alberta Whittle
between a whisper and a cry (2019)
https://www.biennial.com/2020/exhibition/artists/alberta-whittle

The opening of Alberta Whittle’s work contains a quotation from Christina Sharpe’s book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Duke University Press) 2016

Invernomuto (Simone Bertuzzi and Simone Trabucchi)
Black Med (2018-)
https://blackmed.invernomuto.info/

commentator Elvira Dyangani Ose

On art that reflects our changing bodies. Pedro Neves Marques’ film raises the possibility of male pregnancies; Ane Graff’s sculptures show how our bodies adapt to pollution. We are joined by curator Chus Martinez. Presented by Vid Simoniti. Liverpool Biennial 2021 www.biennial.com

LINKS
Liverpool Biennial 2021: find out more about the artists and the exhibition
Twitter: Liverpool Biennial / Vid Simoniti
Instagram: Liverpool Biennial 

Works featured

Pedro Neves Marques
A Mordida (The Bite) (2019)
http://www.pedronevesmarques.com/amordida_filminstallation.html 

Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (2021)
This work is showing at the Liverpool Biennial. http://www.pedronevesmarques.com/becomingmaleinthemiddleages.html

Ane Graff
States of Inflammation (2019)
https://www.anegraff.com/

Commentator Chus Martinez

How can art respond to ecological challenges? Jorge Menna Barreto relates how his “stomach sculpture” protects the Amazon rainforest, and video artist Bo Zheng discusses whether we can have sex with plants. We are joined by curator Margarida Mendes. Presenter Vid Simoniti. 

LINKS
Liverpool Biennial 2021: find out more about the artists and the exhibition
Twitter: Liverpool Biennial / Vid Simoniti
Instagram: Liverpool Biennial 

Works featured

Jorge Menna Barreto
Il Restauro (2016)
https://www.visibleproject.org/blog/project/restauro-environmental-sculpture-32a-bienal-of-so-paulo-brazil/

Bo Zheng
Pteridophilia (2016)
http://zhengbo.org/2018_PP3.html

commentator Margarida Mendes

How can artists show violence with sensitivity? Painter Ebony G Patterson discusses her portraits of gang members in Jamaica. Photographer Sohrab Hura’s explains his response to social media violence in India. We are joined by curator Catalina Lozano.

LINKS
Liverpool Biennial 2021: find out more about the artists and the exhibition
Twitter: Liverpool Biennial / Vid Simoniti
Instagram: Liverpool Biennial

Works discussed:

Ebony G Patterson
Gangstas for Life Series (2007-)
http://ebonygpatterson.com/works.php

The Of 72 Project (2011)
http://www.theof72project.com/

Sohrab Hura

The Coast (2019)
https://www.sohrabhura.com/The-Coast

The Lost Head and the Bird (2017)
https://www.sohrabhura.com/The-Lost-Head-The-Bird

commentator Catalina Lozano

Our histories can unite us, but they can also haunt us. The artists we talk to respond to ghosts of the past by interweaving historical narratives with reflection on their personal lives. Dawit L Petros investigates the archives of the empire to track down an unlikely 19th century adventure up the River Nile. Jennifer Tee recovers nearly forgotten Indonesian textile crafts, which inspire her life-affirming collages made of tulip petals. Michelle Peterkin-Walker, a Liverpool-based videographer, shares her archive of Liverpool’s African diasporic culture.

Presented by Vid Simoniti with contributions from Liverpool Biennial 2025 curator Marie-Anne McQuay.

The second series of Art Against the World is part of the Liverpool Biennial 2025 public programme and is co-produced with the University of Liverpool.

You can find out more about the exhibition at https://www.biennial.com/

How do families inspire artists today? Artist Alice Rekab draws on their Irish and Sierra Leonian ancestry to recover a sense of belonging. Film-maker Amber Akaunu explores single parenting in her film about ‘other mothers’: women who help single mums raise their children. Actor, writer and activist Felix Mufti describes how intergenerational queer communities shape chosen families in Liverpool. We also explore how this year’s exhibition responds to the historical origin of the Bluecoat gallery, which began life as a charity school for orphaned children.

Presented by Vid Simoniti with contributions from Liverpool Biennial 2025 curator Marie-Anne McQuay.

The second series of Art Against the World is part of the Liverpool Biennial 2025 public programme and is co-produced with the University of Liverpool.

Cities are continuously built over, and so their histories begin disappearing. We discuss how attention to architecture uncovers lost social memory. Vid takes a walk around Liverpool with writer Jeff Young, whose book Ghost Town conjures memories latent in the city’s buildings. Turner-prize winner Elizabeth Price relates how Catholic modernist churches reflect the social history of the Irish diaspora. Artist Cevdet Erek channels memory of football stadiums into his audio-sculptural installations, revealing political struggles past and present.

Presented by Vid Simoniti with contributions from Liverpool Biennial 2025 curator Marie-Anne McQuay.

The second series of Art Against the World is part of the Liverpool Biennial 2025 public programme and is co-produced with the University of Liverpool.

Cobalt is in our phones, 50% of packaged goods contain palm oil and microplastics have been detected in human placentas. Globally traded materials are, for better or for worse, the everyday bedrock of our society. Artist Linda Lamignan explores their dual heritage from two oil economies, Norway and Nigeria, and explains how animism can inform a different understanding of natural resources. Artist Odur Ronald makes use of aluminium in his sculptures, highlighting parallel routes of global migration and extraction of resources from Africa today. Art historian Stephanie O’Rourke explains the complex relationship artists have always had to the materials traded through global networks since the age of industrialization.

Presented by Vid Simoniti with contributions from Liverpool Biennial 2025 curator Marie-Anne McQuay.

The second series of Art Against the World is part of the Liverpool Biennial 2025 public programme and is co-produced with the University of Liverpool.