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About Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is one of the most important public art agencies in the North West and the UK’s contemporary art biennial, the largest contemporary art festival in the nation. For each festival, dozens of international artists are invited to create new works in locations throughout Liverpool and hundreds of the best British artists compete for accolade through the John Moores prize for contemporary painting and New Contemporaries exhibition. Additional exhibitions, presented through a thriving independent scene, mean that for 10 weeks every two years Liverpool is the focus for contemporary art in Britain.
Liverpool Biennial is also creating art in the public realm that is attracting worldwide attention outside of the festival period. Antony Gormley’s Another Place is one of the most popular attractions in the North West and reports of Richard Wilson’s Turning the Place Over were broadcast on CNN international, BBC News 24, BBC, ITV, and other local and national radio and print media. Liverpool Biennial is project managing Channel 4’s Big Art Prize project at Sutton Manor and will deliver another major public art piece in Liverpool in early 2009.
In 2008, we achieved nearly 1 million visits to exhibitions during the festival, plus 1.5 million visits to other Liverpool Biennial projects. Biennial communications reached millions of people in the North West, Britain, Europe and beyond and Liverpool Biennial and was one of the most important highlights of Liverpool, European Capital of Culture 2008.
Liverpool Biennial is by nature a partnership organisation. Our strength in partnership is in creating synergy using the arts, our expertise and good practice. Within Liverpool, the North West and beyond we utilise our unique capacities to work with artistic, political, economic development and educational organisations to create a range of artistic, social and economic benefits through partnerships that produce results greater than the sum of the individual effects or capabilities of the partners.
The art that Liverpool Biennial produces and the effect that it has on communities is profound and far reaching. By providing art that is inspirational and aspirational in a city that is unique, resonant and recognised around the world, the Biennial is putting meaning and quality into personal perspectives. Along with our partners, we understand that art inspires debate, communication, creativity and engagement and the Biennial undertakes activity based on these qualities to create personal, social and aesthetic growth.
Liverpool Biennial commissions and presents art of international quality that enriches the lives of people in our communities--providing learning, satisfaction, environmental improvements, confidence and security. With our arts partners we develop the arts infrastructure and the professional landscape for artists and curators. Our public and private sector partnerships build better communities and stronger economic results.
Our core value—Go Further—is about ensuring that whatever Liverpool Biennial undertakes leads the field, is cutting edge and challenging. The art that we present should always seek to create new social and intellectual spaces and the partnerships that underpin this should do the same.
Vision, Mission, Values, Aims and Objectives
Engaging art, people and place
Our vision is that by 2011 Liverpool Biennial will be:
• Acknowledged as the ‘first to mind’ national contemporary arts festival
• Renowned for the high quality of its year round activities as well as for the Biennial festival
• A commissioner of choice for artists of international standing
• Closely identified with and identifying Liverpool – one of the top 3 UK cities for culture
• An influential player in the cultural sector acknowledged by our peers
• Recognised for our innovative ways of working – a model 21st Century Arts Organisation
• Staffed appropriately to deliver the above
• Funded sufficiently to deliver the vision and funded sustainably.
Our mission - Engaging art, people and place - is achieved through partnership. The wellspring for our activities should always be our core value of ‘Go Further’.
We illustrate this core value and underpin our mission by:
• Widening access
• Working through partnership and collaboration
• Deepening our commitment to artistic excellence
• Encouraging artistic innovation and risk-taking
• Examining the wider roles of the visual arts in contemporary culture
We have three principal aims that are supported by objectives:
Core Aim 1
Commission and present art of significant ambition and quality as measured by international arts professionals
Core Aim 2
Broaden and deepen engagement with contemporary art
Core Aim 3
Strengthen the art infrastructure (buildings, funding, organisations) and profession (artists, curators, arts administrators, networking) in Liverpool, and develop these through partnership
These aims will be achieved through the provision of artistic and learning programmes and services that include:
• Biennial Festival
• Exhibitions (gallery, off-site, web-based)
• Commissions of new work
• Public Art commissions and services
• Publications (exhibition catalogues and critical writings)
• Public programmes of artists’ talks, discussion events and seminars
• Learning and Inclusion programme and resources
Liverpool Biennial is governed by a board whose current members are:
Paula Ridley (Chairman), Ex Chair V & A Museum and Tate Liverpool, Ex Trustee Tate and National Gallery
Alistair Sunderland, Senior Partner Austin: Smith Lord, Liverpool
Michael Cox, Partner Grant Thornton UK LLP
Jane Wentworth, Independent Brand Consultant
Roger Goddard, Retired Director of Finance & Internal Services of Arts Council (Manchester)
Lesley Chalmers, Committee Member at European Institute for Urban Affairs, Owner at Lesley Chalmers Photography
Jim Gill, Chief Executive Liverpool Vision
Simon MacKinnon, Honorary Director, the Liverpool Shanghai Partnership
Tony Wilson, Senior Partner Hill Dickinson
Gerald Pillay, Professor Rector and Chief Executive Liverpool Hope University
John Shield, Partner JST Lawyers
Ryan Gander, Artist
Staff List:
Lewis Biggs - Artistic Director
Paul Smith - Executive Director
Melanie Thorpe - Executive Assistant
Paul Domela - Programme Director and Higher Education Liason
Sacha Waldron - Programme Assistant
Lorenzo Fusi - Curator of the International 10 Exhibition
Francis Loeffler - Curatorial Assistant
Leon Seth - Curatorial Assistant
Amanprit Sandhu - Curatorial Assistant (RCA MA programme)
Sally Lupton - Development Manager
Lisa Bradshaw - Development Officer
Laurie Peak - Programme Director (Public Art)
Carol Ramsey - Programme Assistant (Public Art)
Franny George - Partnership Coordinator
Paul Kelly - HMR Public Realm Project Manager
Antony Pickthall - Head of Marketing and Communications
Mary Linnell-Simmons - Marketing and Communications Officer
Toby Startup - Human Resource Officer and Office Manager
Richard Wilson - Finance Manager
Allison Mottram - Finance Assistant
Sally Wong - IT Support Officer
