Consisting of a series of letters and using the state of housing in the district of Toxteth, Liverpool 8, as its starting point, issue three of Stages considers how Liverpool Biennial might inhabit the city in more significant ways.
For five days, in the early autumn of 2014, a group of artists, curators, designers, writers and community organisers gathered to consider how Liverpool Biennial might inhabit its city in more significant ways. Discussions, that week, explored connections between a multiplicity of issues, practices, times and places. Their starting point was the state of housing in the district of Toxteth, Liverpool 8. Partially derelict since the 1980s when changes in industrialisation combined with government policy saw a steep decline in population, the neighbourhood has been a site of conflict and activism, where questions have been raised about local government housing policy. This complex, loaded situation acted as the prompt for a week of research and inquiry.
This issue of Stages is a series of letters that emerged from The Resident, written by Dominic Willsdon, Curatorial Correspondent for Liverpool Biennial, and part of the Curatorial Faculty for 2016.