Liverpool Biennial & Independents Biennial
For a city-wide art fix this summer, head to Liverpool. Titled ‘Bedrock’, this year’s edition of Liverpool Biennial is inspired by the city’s geographic, architectural and social foundations.
Bridgend and Bristol-based a-n members Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel collaborate as DARCH. Their presentation for Liverpool Biennial at FACT Liverpool is an earth, ceramic and sound installation made with residents in Sefton, who have contributed stories about their physical and spiritual connections to the land and bedrock of Merseyside.
Also at FACT, Newcastle-based Kara Chin presents an interactive installation blending Manga and apocalyptic video game aesthetics with urban symbols including seagulls, parking meters and buddleia. The work extends on to the city’s streets through intricate ceramic tile interventions on routes between venues.
Running concurrently is the Independents Biennial, which celebrates artists living and working in Liverpool. Artist-led events include group exhibitions ‘BOOM’ at The Old Fire Station and ‘Footnotes’ at CBS Gallery & Studios, while photographer Casey Orr collaborates with performer Jude Kershaw on the portrait series A Year of Jude, which considers the ways in which fashion and personal presentation reflect generational beliefs and values.
Until 14 September 2025, venues and sites across Liverpool biennial.com and independentsbiennial.com
Cribbs Canopy
A new public artwork by artist-designers Denman+Gould (a-n members Eleanor Goulding and Russell Denman) has transformed a drainage basin at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol into a biodiverse haven for both people and wildlife.
Cribbs Canopy blends sculpture and ecology to reimagine urban space. The centrepiece – a striking, nest-like tower clad in cedar shingles – provides shelter for bats, birds, bees and butterflies, while handcrafted habitats and meadows support threatened species like starlings and sparrows.
“This is a place that can remind us that we can live with wildlife,” say the artists. “We need these spaces more than ever: for our wellbeing, to show that we care, and to quite literally house wildlife.”
Permanent installation, Cribbs Causeway, Bristol ginkgoprojects.co.uk
Fountain | 1937
“This work makes some noise on behalf of those from the Black Country whose voices have not been heard,” says artist and a-n member Keith Harrison of Fountain | 1937, his new installation at Witley Court and Gardens.
The work explores the lives of Black Country coal miners whose labour helped fund the opulence of the 19th-century estate. Inspired by the architecture of pithead baths – washing facilities built for miners in the 1930s – Harrison’s structure invites visitors to reflect on the stark contrasts between underground toil and aristocratic grandeur.
Fountain | 1937 reflects the daily routines of miners in a contemplative space overlooking Witley’s lake. Visitors can also hear an evocative audio piece by Preston Field Audio, and later this year, floating sculptures referencing the Round Oak Steelworks will be launched on the lake.
Until May 2026, Witley Court & Gardens, Worcestershire english-heritage.org.uk
Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025
‘Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985–2025’, curated by Lubaina Himid, revisits and reactivates the legacy of ‘The Thin Black Line’, the landmark exhibition of young Black and Asian women artists that she curated at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London in 1985.
Featuring artists from the original show – including a-n members Sonia Boyce, Chila Kumari Singh Burman and Supata Biswas – the exhibition foregrounds four decades of intersectional practice, resistance and connection.
Boyce’s early pastel work Rice n Peas (1982) reflects on identity through its references to food and domesticity; Biswas’ film Birdsong (2004) weaves ideas of time, memory, landscape and colonial legacies into dream-like images; while Burman’s new neon commission lights up the ICA concourse to typically maximalist effect.
Looking forward as much as back, and conceived by Himid as a multi-vocal, multi-disciplinary project, ‘Connecting Thin Black Lines 1985 – 2025’, expands beyond the exhibition to include new commissions and live events. Among the a-n members included in the programme are Magda Stawarska and Helen Cammock, who both present films and live performances.
24 June – 7 September 2025, ICA, London ica.art
Gut Feelings 2.0
a-n member Kasra Jalilipour presents their most ambitious exhibition to date, in which moving image, 3D animation, sculpture and installation reimagine erased queer histories from 19th Century Iran.
Drawing on Qajar-era art, literature and ritual, Jalilipour constructs a speculative archive of gender-marginalised lives. Works include reimagined sculptural relics, a laser-cut shrine rooted in Islamic design and 3D-animated holograms made in collaboration with queer and trans artists living in diaspora.
Blending fact and fiction, ‘Gut Feelings 2.0’ questions how history is recorded and how it might be re-told through queer lenses. Jalilipour explains: “This exhibition has been years in the making and it’s a rare and special opportunity to bring fellow queer Iranian voices together and dream-weave on a topic close to our hearts.”
Until 16 August, Grand Union, Birmingham grand-union.org.uk
Elsa James: It Should Not Be Forgotten
Renowned British African-Caribbean interdisciplinary artist and a-n member Elsa James presents her first major solo exhibition at Firstsite, featuring photography, neon, screen print and sound. The works confront Britain’s “national amnesia” regarding its role in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African people and the colonial legacies that followed, offering a deeply moving and immersive experience.
The show includes large-scale photographic pieces inspired by Christina Sharpe’s notion of how the slave ship marks and haunts contemporary Black life today. James explains: “The show explores the rupture, erasure, and fragmentation of histories that shape Black life in the diaspora, inviting moments of understanding, healing, and community connection.”
Until 6 July 2025, Firstsite, Colchester firstsite.uk
Going Back Brockens: Monuments and Rhetoric After the Miners’ Strike
Marking 40 years since the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, this new exhibition by artist Narbi Price and writer Mark Hudson explores County Durham’s post-coalfield communities.
The show features 40 paintings of former colliery sites – once central to working-class communities – alongside an immersive sound installation drawn from Hudson’s interviews in his 1994 book Coming Back Brockens.
Price says: “These former pit villages, and the people that live in them, have tales to tell – not just stories of their industrial past, but new stories of the now, and of hope, progress and evolution”.
Following the exhibition at the 139th Durham Miners’ Gala, the works will travel to the village of Horden, for its 125th anniversary celebrations, where the soundscape will play in the historic St Mary’s Church, also known as the ‘Miners’ Cathedral’.
12 July, Durham Miners’ Gala & 22 August, St Mary’s Church, Horden nomorenowt.org
Top image: Keith Harrison, Fountain | 1937, installation at Witley Court and Gardens, Worcestershire. Photo: Jim Holden. Courtesy: English Heritage
