Programme announced for Liverpool Biennial 2025
Liverpool Biennial 2025 runs 7 June - 14 September 2025
The below press release was originally published by Liverpool Biennial. For the full release, including a look at programming at venues throughout the city, click here.
Today Liverpool Biennial launches the full programme for its 13th edition, taking place from 7 June – 14 September 2025.
Titled ‘BEDROCK', Liverpool Biennial 2025 is curated by Marie-Anne McQuay with Director Dr Samantha Lackey and the Liverpool Biennial Team. ‘BEDROCK’ draws on Liverpool’s distinctive geography and the beliefs which underpin the city. It is inspired by the sandstone which spans the city region and is found in its distinctive architecture. ‘BEDROCK’ also acts as a metaphor for the unique social foundations of Liverpool, haunted by empire, and the people, places and values that ground us.
The participating artists for Liverpool Biennial 2025 are: Alice Rekab (Ireland/Sierra Leone); Amber Akaunu (UK/Nigeria); Amy Claire Mills (Australia); Ana Navas (Venezuela/Ecuador/Netherlands); Anna Gonzalez Noguchi (Spain/Japan/UK); Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic (Netherlands/Panama/Serbia); Cevdet Erek (Turkey); ChihChung Chang 張致中 (Taiwan/Netherlands); Christine Sun Kim (USA); DARCH (India/Somaliland/Wales); Dawit L. Petros (Eritrea/Canada/USA); Elizabeth Price (UK); Fred Wilson (USA); Hadassa Ngamba (Democratic Republic of the Congo/Belgium); Imayna Caceres (Peru/Austria); Isabel Nolan (Ireland); Jennifer Tee (Netherlands); Kara Chin (UK/Singapore); Karen Tam 譚嘉文(Canada); Katarzyna Perlak (Poland/UK); Leasho Johnson (USA/Jamaica); Linda Lamignan (Nigeria/Norway); Maria Loizidou (Cyprus); Mounira Al Solh (Lebanon); Nandan Ghiya (India); Nour Bishouty (Lebanon/Jordan/Palestine/Canada); Odur Ronald (Uganda); Petros Moris (Greece); Sheila Hicks (France/USA); Widline Cadet (Haiti/USA).
Taking over historic buildings, unexpected spaces and art galleries, Liverpool Biennial - the UK’s largest free festival of contemporary visual art - has been transforming the city through art for over two decades. A dynamic programme of free exhibitions, performances, community and learning activities, and fringe events unfolds over 14 weeks, shining a light on the city’s vibrant cultural scene.
New venues and sites announced today for the 13th edition include 20 Jordan Street located in the city’s Baltic Triangle, Pine Court, the heritage site of Pine Court Housing Association in the heart of Chinatown, and The Black-E, Liverpool's pioneering arts and community centre, which join venues such as Bluecoat, FACT Liverpool, Liverpool Cathedral, Liverpool Central Library, Open Eye Gallery, Tate Liverpool + RIBA North and Walker Art Gallery.
A series of outdoor works are set to be installed at sites across the city including Liverpool ONE, Mann Island, St John’s Gardens and the grounds of The Oratory at Liverpool Cathedral.
Marie-Anne McQuay, Curator, Liverpool Biennial 2025, said:
‘BEDROCK’ as a title and holding space for the festival extends from the physical sandstone foundations of the city to become a metaphor for its distinctive civic values, that are haunted by its colonial past. While responding to these contexts, I asked the invited artists to present their own ‘bedrock’; to share the values, people and places that ground them, which here includes family and chosen family, ancestral cultural heritage carried across generations, and nature that nurtures and restores them. ‘BEDROCK’ is the place we start from together.
Dr Samantha Lackey, Director, Liverpool Biennial, said:
‘BEDROCK’ will be an extraordinary moment which connects us deeply back to our foundations in the city, while continuing our collaborations with artists from across the globe. Marie-Anne is an exceptional curator who understands implicitly the local context we are working in, addressing some of the ways in which that has been formed over the past years. As always, we are delighted to be working with longstanding venue partners across the city and are excited to collaborate with organisations with whom we have initiated new partnerships. We are grateful for the continued support and engagement from our core funders Arts Council England and Liverpool City Council for enabling us to bring exceptional art and artists to the UK.
Walker Art Gallery
The artists at Walker Art Gallery offer densely material works that interweave practices which explore personal and colonial legacies, within an ornate building and national collection founded on the merchant wealth of the city.
Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic present a new work as part of their ‘Electronic Dub Station’ series, recently presented at the 60th Venice Biennale. Titled ‘Concrete Roots’, the site-specific installation examines themes of resilience, migration, ecological consciousness and textile traditions through the duo’s renowned use of indigo textiles and dub music soundscapes.
Leasho Johnson presents a series of densely pigmented large-scale paintings in which he creates abstract characters that reference his own lived experience to disrupt historical, political, stereotypical and biological expectations of the Black queer body.
Through sculpture, photo-collage, drawing, and textiles, Nour Bishouty investigates the impulses of tourism and sightseeing, foregrounding questions around permission and the production of fantasy. Bishouty’s multimedia installation, which was developed as a way to read a painting of a fictional landscape by the artist's father, sits in conversation with works in the Walker Art Gallery collection, anchoring it in historical and cultural memory.
Jennifer Tee exhibits collages from her ongoing ‘Tampan Tulips’ series which draw inspiration from the colourful, geometric aesthetics of the traditional tampan textiles. Created using dried tulip petals, these works highlight the delicate and fleeting nature of life.
Further highlights include cast resin works of Dream Stones by Karen Tam 譚嘉文; a new, large-scale textile and embroidery work by Katarzyna Perlak; wall-based works by Cevdet Erek inspired by football stadia layouts; paintings and tapestries of fictional landscapes by Isabel Nolan; and a mosaic work by Petros Moris presented in the Sculpture Gallery.
The Oratory
A selection from Petros Moris’ ‘ALONE’ series of mosaic sculptures referencing an abandoned playground and his parent's own mosaic studio, will be exhibited in the grounds of The Oratory at Liverpool Cathedral, as well as at Bluecoat and Walker Art Gallery.
For a full look at the Liverpool Biennial programme at venues across the city, view the original release in full here.