Liverpool Independents Biennial

Took down the exhibition at The Gallery Stanhope St, Liverpool today. Packed it all up, put it in a van….and got it to the MerseyBio unit of Liverpool University.

Unpacked it ….made a start on spacing the work out…and decided to call it a day. I think there’s only so much unscrewing mirror plates and changing them over to D rings and wire that you can do in a day. The real hanging can start tomorrow.

As the About Here exhibition at The Gallery, Liverpool, comes to a close, some interesting developments have occurred. We always said that we would like to tour the exhibition and have so far been fortunate enough to secure an exhibition at Mersey Bio – part of Liverpool University. ( That will happen on Monday, when we take down the show and move it on )

It appears though that communications that we’ve had with various groups etc have filtered further afield. We’ve now been in contact with an artist and galleries in Malta, who would like to consider future collaborations.

It is quite bizarre that things have progressed so quickly after what seems like just a few random conversations. There were absolutely no plans to even consider Malta, but there suddenly it is, as an option!

The three of us – Sue, Christine and Myself had a meeting on Tuesday night, to discuss the next move. Jane is away for a few days, so will have to catch up when she returns. We decided to split the research, so finance, geography and other practicalities could be looked in to.

The following night, was a Wirral artists networking session, so we again attended that meeting to glean whatever information we could about funding.

Dialogues between us and the Maltese artists in the meantime , will continue….



Thursday 7 October.

Got my work ready to take to the 6 Rooms gallery to hang. I’d been working with carrier bags for about two years now – stripping and interweaving them onto a canvas background. All have remained exactly as they were when first produced … except this one. It was barely 6 months old and yet when I unrolled the sheet, bits of plastic filtered out. I’d used a variety of bags in the work, and most had stayed in their original condition . The Tesco bags though, had started to degrade. Physically, it looked OK, as I’d only use them in small sections…but it could have been disastrous.

From an environmental point of view, it’s good ( providing that the bits break down even further that is) … But from an artwork point of view.. note to self – do not use Tesco bags!

The Wing installation in the About Here exhibition is made from a different type of bag. Strong and durable… and best made into an artwork than dumped into landfill.



Not a soul in today… Thankfully it wasn’t my turn to invigilate.

I have to hang Independent Biennial exhibition No. 2 on Thursday…and I had a text today about preparations for independent Biennial exhibition No 3 – just 3 weeks away.

Actually – that will be No 4, as we hadn’t planned to tour No 1.

No idea at all why we do this to ourselves.



People have their opinions…

Just opened this month’s a-n. Only got as far as the letters page before I had to get up and walk away.

The author of that last letter visited our exhibition and tried to advise us on how the works should have been hung for maximum sales effect. Couldn’t understand at all that we were not aiming for sales.

It’s been an up and down week at the gallery. Visitors are dwindling, which seems to be the case for a lot of us. I got in touch with one of our local papers to see if they could give us a mention – asking a lot really considering the hundreds of other events on in the City, but they requested a photo which seems a good sign. With still two weeks to go, we need to keep the momentum going.

We had been talking about touring the works after this exhibition closes and thinking of ways we can start the ball rolling. By chance, we’ve been offered an exhibition in the MerseyBio unit of Liverpool University. The space is smaller, with more alcoves and windows, so it gives the opportunity of adapting to fit. This will hold us in good stead for looking to other venues.

It would be a nice idea to be able to fit all our works in a suitcase and just travel with it.