Livin' la Vida Liverpool

It’s strange to go to a place that you know so much about, but have never been to before. I’m sure that if I were to go to New York it would be the same. I’ve seen it on tv shows and movies, I’ve read books set there, I’ve heard songs. The other day, there was a quiz question to name the boroughs of the city, and I knew quite a few. For me, Liverpool is the same. Mum’s from there, and her and the Liverpool Diaspora in Townsville have told me about the town from a small age. So when I went there on Saturday it was at once familiar yet alien to me.

I have been there on two previous occasions, so remembered the Albert Dock (we had bought Jelly Bellys), but little else, I was really too young to take it in. I guess it’s like London used to be. One of my strongest memories was sitting at home with Rachael and watching A League of Their Own twenty times, while the rest of the family went out and saw interesting London things.

Me and Carmen next to the Tate Liverpool at the Albert Dock

This time Liverpool was different. I had decided to go after hearing about the Gustav Klimt exhibition (fabulous!) and invited Carmen along, as I knew that she would be interested in seeing it. The exhibition was really interesting as it was about the whole artistic movement happening in Vienna in 1900 and combined furniture, architecture, painting, design and sculpture. Definitely worth seeing, and the rest of the Tate Liverpool seemed very well thought out. After seeing the exhibition, we walked to the FACT gallery and saw an exhitition by Pipilotti Rist. I was quite tired after having gotten up very early in the morning and stood during most of the train journey (very overcrowded Virgin Train), so enjoyed it especially because it involved relaxing (sitting on an oversized couch and flicking through art films with a massive remote, lying in the half dark on a mound of carpet and watching films projected on the ceiling).
We went and stayed with my Great Uncle Bill and Great Aunty Vera who came to Townsville last year and were so amazingly hospitable and showed us around.
One of the most striking things about Liverpool is the amount of empty houses. On the way to Bill and Vera’s we passed street after street of burnt out and boarded up Victorian terraces. Some have been spruced up with decorative boarding (for the visitors to Liverpool as it is the EU capital of culture) but a lot are just ruins. The bonus of this is that street artists such as Banksy have let loose on the abandoned buildings.

I think that the city, like many industrial cities in the UK has really suffered since the economic policies of the Thatcher era, but hopefully the cultural events this year (so many amazing exhibitions and shows) will help bring more money and people to the city.

There are so many little hidden things to see in the city. Bill and Vera took me along to the Phil(harmonic) pub, which is an opulently decorated pub from the turn of last century, complete with extravagant art-nouveau decorations, mosaic floors, stained glass windows and marble urinals.


We also went out to Crosby beach and checked out the Antony Gormley art piece, Another Place. It is 100 casts of his body, scattered about the beach. It’s one of those installations that you just enjoy – it’s art you can touch.




Speaking of art to enjoy, I checked out a few exhibitions at the Hayward Gallery in London, before going to Liverpool. One, Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is an environmentally focused craft exhibition with knitted, crocheted, beaded and woven corals. The other, Psycho Buildings, – Artists Take On Architecture, was interactive and rather trippy. My favourite part was rowing in a sculpture gallery that has been filled with water, and being inside a large stocking like cocoon with pendulous hanging spice sacks (I don’t know how else to describe it).

It was such a fabulous weekend, and has really inspired me to check out some other parts of the UK.