National Museums Liverpool Blog - liverpool

Copyright Stephen Shakeshaft

The photographs in the exhibition Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft have struck a real chord with visitors and brought back a lot of memories, as the comments made during reminiscence sessions in the exhibition have proved. Some of these comments have been included with the photos on the exhibition website now, and there are more below.

If you would like to take part in a reminiscence session there are a few more planned, with the next one taking place tomorrow afternoon. Full details are in the exhibition events programme on the website.

And don't forget that there are just a couple more days left to enter the caption competition and win a signed copy of Stephen Shakeshaft's book 'No Illusions' - so get your thinking caps on if you haven't entered yet!

"One thing which stands out is the expression of resilience mixed with hope on the faces of the people in our great city."

"We seem to have grown up in poverty but children always seemed to be laughing. The photographs made me realise this."

"The photo of the clothes rack reminds me of sitting at the kitchen table with wet clothes dripping into your dinner."

"The photograph of the lady with the washing rack reminds me of my gran's house. She always had the kettle on and cake in a tin."

"My son can't believe some of these photos. Why have an indoor washing line?"

"I love the photograph of the lady with the gas mantle. Looks like she's just come in from the wash house, is so pleased with her washing all done and is ready for that cup of tea. I can almost hear her sigh."

"The photograph of the carters reminded me of my dad and brother who used to be carters. They would dress up the horses with brasses and ribbons and go to shows. We used to take the horses back to the stables in Whittle Street."

"I'm reminded of the rag and bone man with his goldfish. Where did he put all those goldfish on his cart?"

"The photograph of the carter reminded me of having our milk delivered by Mabel in her pony and trap in West Derby in the fifties. Sometimes she'd give me a lift to the Saturday cinema in the village. I couldn't tell whether the smell was Mabel or the horse."

"The shop with the children reminds me of shops always having a bell that rang whenever the door opened."

Copyright Stephen Shakeshaft

It's competition time again and this month's picture comes courtesy of the rather wonderful exhibition Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft, which is at the National Conservation Centre until 24 January 2010.

Have a look at this photograph from the exhibition - you can see a larger version on the exhibition website - and see if you can think of an amusing caption for it. Post your entry as a comment (please keep them clean) by the end of the day on Sunday 22 November and the winner will be notified the following week.

Stephen Shakeshaft himself has very kindly offered to judge this month's competition. The lucky winner will get a signed copy of his book 'No Illusions' which includes many of the pictures from the exhibition and more from Stephen's first 30 years as a newspaper photographer.

The Singh Twins next to Ranbindra's painting 'Oh Come All Ye Re-eds'

Is football a new religion? Can being a female artist be an advantage in some cultures? These are just some of the subjects covered in a brief interview I did with acclaimed local artists The Singh Twins. I chatted with Rabindra and Amrit at the private view of the Walker Art Gallery's latest exhibition The Rise of Women Artists, where Ranbindra's painting 'Oh Come All Ye Re-eds' is on display. One of the main things I was interested to find out was whether they ever actually define themselves as 'women artists' or if they didn't think about gender at all.

Amrit said; 'I think personally as artists we’ve never thought of ourselves as women, we’ve never defined ourselves as ‘British female artists’. I think that the gender issue is not really important, as ultimately I think the art should speak for itself and the quality of the work. Therefore it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman.

But I think that it is important in the context of if you consider throughout history where there has been prejudice towards female artists then obviously that is something that needs to be re-addressed. I think there should be more incentives to support female artists especially since many of them are juggling a million things; family life and other commitments around the work they are trying to do. And it’s not always easy to take up a career in art alongside that and to commit to all your other daily activities. Essentially though, no I don’t think that gender matters. The work should speak for itself.

Rabindra said; 'From a personal perspective though, in terms of support for women, in the context of our own background and coming from an Indian family, actually we’ve had a lot more support being women than we would have done being men. Because traditionally it’s the men who are meant to be the breadwinners and go out and get a so-called ‘decent job’. There was less pressure on the women! So I think from our own cultural context I think it’s been an advantage that we’re women and we’ve had 100% support from our family in pursuing a career as artists.

You can listen to or download the full interview with The Singh Twins here and see photos from the private view on our The Rise of Women Artists Flickr set.

Emigrants on the Guion Liner, Wisconsin. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

The nearest I’ve got to emigrating is briefly wanting to flee to the Isle of Man - in the summer it matches any other exotic island in the sun. It was a bright sunny day and I was taking a lunchtime stroll while covering a heavy-going criminal trial at Liverpool Crown Court. Balmy breezes drifted off the sea. Down at the Pier Head the Manx ferry was waiting with last boarders being called.

I was sorely tempted to dash up the gangplank but then common sense kicked in.

Emigration is a drastic step into the unknown and there are usually very good reasons for people wanting to make new lives in different countries

People emigrate for three main reasons – poverty, persecution and ambition. In the great movements of people around the globe in the 19th century, many were fleeing from hardship and poverty.

Emigration was also a way of fleeing political and religious persecution. Many Jewish people left east Europe for this reason.

However, a lot of people were simply attracted by the opportunities offered by life in such places as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The Gold Rush years in North America and Australia triggered mass emigration from Europe as prospectors sought wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

The new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum looks at many different aspects of the trade that helped generate wealth in Liverpool for shipping companies, hotels and many other businesses.

A fascinating colour print shows the emigration of Russian Jews in 1891 (pictured). They are seen crowded on the deck of the Guion liner Wisconsin as she prepares to leave Liverpool.

Other exhibits are linked to the Gold Rush. A 19th century board game called A Race to the Gold Diggings has a box emblazoned with a colourful scene, tiny model sailing ships and a set of rules.

A contemporary poster advertises the Royal Charter emigrant steamer run by the Liverpool and Australian Navigation Company. Saloon passengers paid top prices of between 60 guineas (£63) and 75 guineas (£78.75) – around £4,500 in today’s money – for the voyage while Third Class paid between 16 and 20 guineas.

The Royal Charter met her cruel end in October 1859 when, heading for Liverpool, she was wrecked on the Anglesey coast with the loss of 498 lives. Exhibits include items from the wreck including a section of ornately-carved wood believed to be from the ship’s stern. There's more on the Royal Charter on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I thought my school days were over, but last week I was very excited to be able to join our class of Little Liverpool Designers on their very first school trip!

I had a lovely morning spent with Class R reception class from Kingsley Community School in Toxteth, touring Liverpool familiarising themselves with Liverpool’s famous landmarks to inspire artwork for the Museum of Liverpool’s dedicated children’s gallery Little Liverpool, opening 2011.

They will be working with illustrator Kate Pankhurst to develop the final artwork for display in Little Liverpool as part of our work with the ECHO in the Community programme, which aims to inspire young people by engaging in a cross section of activities, including the arts.

A Little Liverpool Designer gives the new Museum of Liverpool the thumbs up

At four years old, Mrs Randles’ reception class were a credit to their school, and it was fantastic to be surrounded by such young, inquisitive minds who were visibly impressed by everything they saw.

The first stop on our magical mystery tour of Liverpool was at the Anglican Cathedral, and I only wish I’d had a video camera with me to record their faces on walking into that grand, vast space and filling the air ‘wows’!

We also took a trip to the Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral, or Paddy’s Wigwam as it is affectionately known locally, where they were very taken with the colours and reflections coming in from the beautiful stain glass windows. Hopefully this will transfer to the marvellous artwork they’re soon to create for our Little Liverpool Gallery.

After the cathedrals, we also took a driving tour round many iconic buildings, including St George’s Hall and William Brown Street; home to World Museum, Central Library and the Walker Art Gallery.

Spotting the Radio City Tower overhead, our whistle-stop tour also took us past the Town Hall – "where the mayor lives" – and down to the waterfront where we met Museum of Liverpool buildings operations manager Martin Hemmings – "Bob the Builder" – and had a look at the location for Little Liverpool.

A lovely day out was had by all, so thanks goes to Mrs Randles and her ‘helpers’ for organising the trip, and for inviting Julia Bryan from the Museum of Liverpool team and I along. We look forward to seeing the wonderful artwork that Class R create in their roles as Little Liverpool Designers.

An Illustrated London News image showing a Cunard ship leaving Liverpool in 1881

My great aunt married as a very young teenager in Malta (this was 100 years ago).

The child bride later settled in Knotty Ash after giving birth to three children in quick succession nicknamed Boy, Girl and Baby.

Girl became a GI bride in the Second World War and emigrated to the US with her new husband, leaving Boy and Baby behind. Years passed and Girl wrote to say she was coming home to Liverpool for a visit.

Boy and Baby and their families went to meet her at the Princes Landing Stage but when she came down the gangplank no-one recognised her. Girl had totally changed her appearance – and spoke with a strong American accent.

It is many people’s dream in the crowded cities of Europe to escape to the wide-open spaces of North America and enjoy a much-improved standard of living.

By the early 19th century Liverpool was well-placed to cater for the huge growth of the emigration trade to the United States and Canada.

As a result, Liverpool became Britain’s most important international passenger port for more than a century. During the period 1830 -1930 Liverpool was probably the greatest emigration port in world history, handling a stunning nine million passengers from as far away as Russia.

It was not until 1927, when transatlantic emigration was in decline, that Southampton finally surpassed Liverpool for international passenger traffic.

Liverpool-based shipping companies ran regular passenger services to every continent until the 1960s.

There are many displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum focusing on Liverpool’s passenger ships. An Illustrated London News image (pictured) depicts a Cunard ship leaving Liverpool in 1881. A photograph shows either the Cunard liner Carmania (or her sister Caronia) at the Princes Landing Stage on 2 June 1923.

Between 1800 and the1920s the busiest ocean travel route in the world was between the British Isles and North America.

From 1850 many emigrants also headed for Australia and other British colonies around the world. From 1900 more and more people became tourists and travelled the seas for pleasure rather than necessity.

In recent years, business and holidaymaking have been the main reasons for travel. A map shows the sea routes taken by British migrants between 1815 and 1930.

As a child in I remember people queuing up at New Zealand House in Liverpool for their £10 tickets to new lives. My friends, who lived next-door-but-one to me, took this huge step in 1958 and I remember everybody waving them off as the headed for Southampton.

Our Maritime Archives department has produced an information sheet for people wanting to learn more about Emigration to USA and Canada. The sheet gives a brief history of the route, information on searching for people who travelled, details of the shipping companies involved and the records we hold on those firms.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Curator Kay Jones presented Liam with his v50 certificate

Liam Physick, a student at Liverpool University and one of our fantastic youth volunteers, has recently achieved his v50 Award for volunteering for 50 hours for the Museum of Liverpool's urban history department. Liam did a fantastic job of logging 5,605 comment cards from The Beat Goes On exhibition, which asked for visitors' Liverpool music memories. The responses will be used in research at the University of Liverpool. Liam says,

"The project developed my IT skills and taught me how to log records. It was very interesting to read people's experiences. One woman claimed that her husband had been the man who discovered The Beatles. It has clearly shown that people inside and outside Liverpool are fascinated by the city's musical heritage. Visitors came from all over the world including Malaysia, America, the Bahamas and Romania."

What sort of paintings inspire you? Those with flame-haired Pre-Raphaelite muses or striking 20th century works?

National Poetry Day is on Thursday 8 October and we want you to be involved! Get inspired by a painting at the Walker Art Gallery, write a poem about it and send it to us. 

We'll publish a selection of them on the website and pick one winning poem. The winner can choose one poetry book from the ones listed below:

• 'Rapture' by Carol Ann Duffy (hardback)
• 'The Mersey Sound' by Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri (paperback)
• 'Andraste's Hair' by Eleanor Rees (hardback)

The theme for this year's National Poetry Day is 'heroes and heroines', so we have put together a selection of paintings that we think fit in with this idea. These range from ‘Dante's Dream’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti to 'Pin Up 1963 - For Francis Bacon’ by Sam Walsh. So now it's your turn to look through our selected paintings and get inspired!

Send in your entry by Monday 2 November using the online form on the Get inspired...at the Walker page. Good luck!

Here is Phil Lewis our Aquarium & Bughouse Assistant to tell you about the forthcoming Shark Week at the World Museum...

European Shark Week runs from Saturday 10 to Sunday 18 October when we'll have an array of activities at the World Museum's Clore Natural History Centre. There will be badge making for children and lots of posters and pockets guides to give away, with information about sharks and rays.  All the drawings of the various species that are produced by visitors during the week, will be mounted on the wall to form a huge mural. 

Make friends with a shark at Shark Week!

You can also come to several presentations delivered by our very enthusiastic aquarium staff at the Treasure House Theatre. These will focus on the status of sharks in the wild with lots of interesting shark and ray facts and plenty of interaction with the audience!  The dates for these presentations are: Sunday 11, Tuesday 13, Friday 16, Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October.
 
The purpose of Shark Week is to raise awareness about the tens of millions of sharks and rays that are slaughtered each year. This is due to unsustainable fishing practices and a desire for shark fin soup, which is an extremely cruel and wasteful practice. Sharks which have just had there fins cut off are then thrown overboard still alive and left to die slowly. 

In Europe alone, thousands of tonnes of sharks are landed each year accounting for 27 percent of the slaughter world wide.  This is an appalling example set by the EU, which other nations may look to for guidance and influence.  They are also fished commercially for their meat and liver oil used in lamps, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and vitamin supplements.  Harvesting these animals is unsustainable as sharks and rays grow slowly and have few offspring, making it impossible for them to recover from such exploitation.  As sharks in particular usually receive negative media coverage, due to rare attacks on humans, it is very hard to lobby support for this group of animals than it is for other groups of endangered animals. 

This is why Shark Week is so important in raising awareness and bringing these issues to the forefront of public imagination. These animals have been around for 400 million years - that's 200 million years before the dinosaurs - and they deserve better than this.

We hope to see you there so you can find out more about these incredible animals!

Alas, unlike the beat itself, this exhibition doesn't go on and on. We're into the final weeks of World Museum's The Beat Goes On exhibition and what a tune-tastic time we've had.

Paul McCartney's trousers made a visit as did half a million members of the public. Local bands had their tunes profiled in our on-gallery and online jukeboxes (check out the MySpace page and have a listen). Willing volunteers cut their museum teeth on the gallery, and we launched an online resource charting Liverpool's musical heritage.

But fret not! (fret...music...geddit?) You've still until 1 November to get down to the museum and to get down!  Take your kids during half term and show them what real music sounds like. And if you still need persuading the Guardian's video on Liverpool's music scene should do the trick.

And if you still don't manage to catch the exhibition you're going to have to wait until the Museum of Liverpool opens in 2011. The Creative City gallery will become home to items like the Woolton church stage where John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met in 1957, the vibrant 'All You Need is Love' bedcover from John and Yoko’s Bed-in-for-Peace in Montreal in 1969, and four Beatles stage suits.

And as it's the final month The Beat Goes On exhibition guide has been reduced to half price so now costs just £1.50. Get your copy in our groundfloor shop.

I find graveyards and cemeteries fascinating places not only on a spiritual level but also as sources of stories – each stone bears testimony to lives, some detailed, some obscure.

While looking around Childwall’s ancient yard in Liverpool recently I stumbled across memorials to the Okill family. These were principled people because John Okill &Co were the only Africa merchants in Liverpool not engaged in the slave trade.

The impact of the slave trade on Africa was profound as it blighted progress in all aspects of life on the continent for many generations.

The transatlantic slave trade operated for almost 400 years, fuelled by Europe’s almost insatiable desire for sugar, cotton, tobacco and other products of the New World which were then regarded as luxuries.

Liverpool ships were a key part of the trade and the town became Europe’s leading slaving port in the second half of the 18th century.

At least 12 million Africans were forcibly transported by Britain and other countries but many millions more were profoundly affected. The transatlantic slave trade destroyed African societies, robbing them of young people.

A staggering two-thirds of enslaved people were young men aged between 15 and 25. They were in huge demand to work the booming plantations producing ever-growing quantities of crops.

Arms and ammunition brought to Africa by European traders helped perpetrate conflict and political instability.

Displays at the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, focus on the consequences of the trade on Africa.

Successful trade routes that existed before European intervention were disrupted. The development of African communities and cultures was severely stunted. Agriculture suffered as communities abandoned fertile land as they fled the long reach of the European slavers.

The labour and inventiveness of enslaved peoples shaped the Americas and enriched Western European, rather than their African homelands.

Ships on the Niger expedition. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

On display is a lithograph featuring ships on the 1841 Niger Expedition (pictured). Thomas Fowell Buxton was leader of the British anti-slavery movement in the post-slave trade era.

He urged the British government to make treaties with African leaders to abolish the slave trade. The expedition went to the Niger River delta to set up a headquarters and began negotiations. The party suffered so many deaths from disease that they had to return home.

There is a half model of the Balmore, bought by John Holt & Co in 1908. The Holt family was involved in the West Africa trade from the 1860s.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Bridget Riley

I was lucky enough to get to photograph Bridget Riley this week, while she was here for the opening of a major exhibition of her work at the Walker. She was pretty in demand so I didn't get to talk to her, but Press Officer Laura Johnson got chatting with Bridget who told her how pleased she was with the look of the exhibition. (You can see the final adjustments made to the displays by the handling team on our Moving Stories Flickr set.)

Bridget also talked a little about how she creates her work, describing how she doesn't always know what her work will end up looking like and that letting accidents happen often takes her in new directions.

You can get more of an insight into the inspiration behind her work in a short video clip on our exhibition page. In the clip Bridget describes how even brief moments when she sees light in a certain way, can be a form of inspiration:

'I remember one very hot summer, it was in the South of France and I was climbing a hillside of broken shale and the light was so strong that it dazzled. It seemed to come at me from all directions, it was beating down from above and beating back into my eyes at the same time. One lost all sense of focus. Everything seemed to disintegrate in light, the landscape dissolved - it was like standing in a field of pure energy.'

Her paintings are certainly dazzling as a result. Looking at 'Ecclesia', it is almost a dizzying experience, but definitely a pleasant one all the same. You can also see some of Bridget's early sketches that have many annotations around them and show the development of some of her paintings.

See more photos from the exhibition in our 'Bridget Riley Flashback' Flickr set and experience these stunning paintings and drawings for yourself, until 13 December 2009.

Stephen with the photo of Lizzie Christian

We would drive around Liverpool in a mini chasing news – two six footers crammed in the tiny car.

Stephen Shakeshaft was already an established staff photographer at the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo in Victoria Street when I joined as a news reporter in April 1970.

Even as a young man he was very distinguished-looking, tall with an aristocratic nose and an excellent head of hair (which he still has). Stephen was also very funny ha-ha, veering between droll comments and biting sarcasm. We got on well and often traded insults.

It was obvious that he was a rising star among some other very talented people in the office including John Sergeant, Tony Wilson and Roger Alton.

This is not to mention others making their mark such as Phil Key and a youthful, pipe-smoking Joe Riley. I worked with them all until September 1973 when I joined the Press Association in Fleet Street.

Stephen sometimes gave the impression of being rather cautious and methodical. This was deceptive as I could see he was always looking out for a good picture.

I have never seen him at a loss or flustered in any way. I think he may have sometimes regarded his day-to-day work as unchallenging – such things as head-the-ball shots at soccer matches, people scurrying out of the criminal courts or competition winners.

Stephen always poked behind the scenes for gold and about 70 of these largely hidden treasures are on view in his new exhibition Stephen Shakeshaft: Liverpool People at the National Conservation Centre until 24 January 2010.

I find this show totally and utterly fascinating. These brilliant studies capture a Liverpool going through great change from the 1960s onwards.

This is the third of Stephen’s exhibitions I have helped to publicise. I think it is the best because it demonstrates his great ability to capture the personalities of ordinary people.

He has also recorded some of the city streets as they were before pedestrianisation, CCTV, pelican crossings and hideous steel shutters.

This is a world before superstores sucked the life out of our corner shops and closed local pubs, where most people got around on shanks’s pony or took public transport.

To me the pictures evoke a time when people enjoyed mucking in together and laughing at the experience.

I also remember some of the people in the pictures. One of my favourites is this famous shot of greengrocer Lizzie Christian at her city centre barrow (shown). Mrs Christian always had a ready smile for everyone, lighting up the street around her.

Other pictures I like include a crowded wash house which was a great place for exchanging news, Prime Minister Harold Wilson at a packed public meeting and two dockers with a traditional wooden handcart.

Aquarium Curator, Rachel Ball, in the aquarium.

Ever wondered what it's like to handle ancient artefacts, care for unusual creatures or produce an exhibition of wonderful artworks?

If you have a question about our museums, galleries or collections then take part in Ask the curator, which gives you the chance to ask our featured curator anything you like.

Next in line to answer your questions is Aquarium Curator, Rachel Ball. Rachel looks after the collections in the World Museum's aquarium, which is teeming with fish and other sea life from Australia to Anglesey.

She also leads important projects outside of the museum for the conservation of species that are in decline, such as Thornback Rays.

Send in your questions by midnight on Sunday 4 October and we'll choose the best ones to ask Rachel in a video interview, which we'll put on the site soon.

You can ask the curator a question using this online form.

As you can probably tell from my blog posts, I've been looking forward to the exhibition Liverpool People by Stephen Shakeshaft for months. The good news is that the exhibition is now open. The photographs on display present an honest and affectionate view of the many incredible characters that Stephen has encountered in the city over the last few decades. They are bound to bring back memories for many people, while the anecdotes that accompany them should raise a smile or two.

In addition to the photographs, Stephen's old Micro Press plate camera that he used during the 1960s is also on display. It's a real piece of history, and is fascinating to a digital camera user such as myself. I couldn't imagine lifting it, let alone taking a half decent photo with it, so it really does bring home what an accomplished photographer Stephen is. He recalled about using the camera:

Stephen Shakeshaft in the exhibition

"Using this camera was the perfect discipline for a young photographer and quite the opposite of today's technology. To cover a football match at Goodison or Anfield I would have 10 slides which would carry 20 glass plates (5 x 4 inches), this gave me just 20 opportunities to get THE photograph.

The camera required strong shoulders, it was cumbersome but I carried it everywhere with me. In the dark room the only way to test if the plate had been loaded the correct way was to taste the emulsion with the tip of my tongue. Maybe that is the reason why I have silver hair today!"

You may think that retro fashion right now is all about shoulder pads, pink lippy and the influence of the 1980s. But some designers have shown that for the end of 2009, they are finding their inspiration in an era that is much more retro – try going back another 200 years to the 1780s!

Elle magazine has picked up on this trend, which they say is inspired by the paintings of the ‘Old Masters’ and did a whole spread on it in their September issue. Dolce & Gabbana have practically based their whole new collection around it, with sumptuous devoré velvet skirts, silk corsets in deep jewel colours and long flowing gowns with prints from paintings. We have several pieces of costume from the 18th century in our collections, one of which you can see here, which definitely has similarities to this D&G outfit and also this one!

She's in fashion

Reynolds created paintings that imitated the style of the Old Masters. He believed that by imitating the Old Masters he would help to ‘educate’ the British public, as he thought their taste was quite limited. You can also see works by these ‘Old Masters’ in our collections, such as Nicholas Poussin, Rembrandt van Rijn and Peter Paul Rubens.

But if all this expensive fashion seems out of step with the current economic climate, then have no fear. I read in one magazine that a ‘recessionista’ way of getting the look would be to borrow the tassled tie-backs from your parents’ curtains! Not too sure about that.

If you were ever a student in Liverpool like me, chances are Smithdown Road was the cornerstone of your life…for three years at least. The student population from the city’s three universities have always taken it into their hearts, for its diversity, quirkiness and array of pubs! Some of you may have even attempted ‘The Smithdown 10’, finishing up at The 'Big Yellow' Brookhouse pub, before stumbling back to Halls with a takeaway from Zains.

However, it’s not just students who love Smithdown. Believe it or not, Smithdown is a bit of a mainstay in these here parts, and even has a mention in the Domesday Book! So, the history of the area really does hold some uncovered secrets, which curators hope to unearth and reveal in a special exhibition to go on display in the new Museum of Liverpool.

As the museum doesn’t open until 2010 / 11, research is currently underway for The Secret Life of Smithdown project, and community involvement is at the heart of it.

To get involved, why not pop along to our mini-exhibition in Oomoo Café, 349 – 351 Smithdown Road to share your Smithdown stories and photographs of the area? The first drop-in session takes place tomorrow, Saturday 5 September, between 10am - 4pm.

Or, if you can’t make it to Oomoo and maybe have moved away from the delights of Smithdown and Dafna’s Cheesecake Factory, why not visit our Facebook page and share your anecdotes and memories of ‘Gerry the Fridgeman’, the Smithdown Aquarium, and how life has changed for the residents since they built…‘The Asda’.

For more info on the drop-in sessions and other Secret Life of Smithdown events, visit the website.

Frank Green. Copyright Stephen Shakeshaft

The upcoming exhibition 'Liverpool people by Stephen Shakeshaft', which opens at the National Conservation Centre on 18 September, is bound to bring back a lot of memories for people who have seen Liverpool evolve since the 1960s. However Stephen wasn't the only person documenting the changing face of the city, as this photograph from his archive shows. This one of a selection of images that didn't quite make it into the exhibition itself that Stephen has kindly agreed to share here on the blog instead. He recalls:

"In a way we became unofficial archivists of the Liverpool scene. The post-war planners destroyed old Liverpool with a determination never matched by the Luftwaffe. Communities were wiped out. Slums went, but so did good houses. Folk songs were written about moving out to the housing estates in Speke and elsewhere. Uprooted families gazed from the windows of high rise flats.

The process was photographed by myself and painted by Frank Green. Our purpose was the same - to record the passing of the old city. This is Edge Hill as it was then. What would these houses have been worth today with modernisation and renovation?"

Bug House Demonstrator, Rebekah Beresford, is back again to tell us about her latest project in the Bug House at World Museum Liverpool. This time she has been giving the Hermit Crabs' vivarium a make-over! You can see the photos from each stage of the project on our Bug House Flickr set.

The Hermit Crab vivarium

After the success of the Indian Ground Beetles display earlier this year it was decided that some of our other vivariums could also do with a revamp! The Bug House hasn’t kept any mantids for over a year now and they’re incredibly popular with the visitors - so the next vivarium on the list was their display.

The new vivarium arrived from Exo Terra and was made by leading experts in the world of exotics. We got to work on siliconing in a glass partition, a third of the way along the tank to create a fresh water pool. Hermit crabs require fresh water so that they can mix it with salt water. The crabs then pull up into their shells their own preferred salinity reservoir from which they can breathe through. The fresh water pool in this vivarium will house a variety of aquatic invertebrates such as apple snails and gammarus (shrimp-like amphipods). The pool will also be useful for maintaining the humidity in the tank.

Coming from the Caribbean, these Hermit Crabs require humidity of around 70%. Hermit Crabs are avid climbers so it was important to factor this in to the design. A polystyrene wall made to look like rock work was ideal. It was easy to cut and wedged into place perfectly down one side of the vivarium. With some plants and bark attached the crabs would have plenty to climb and perch on.

Once the silicone had dried we tested it for leaks and luckily there weren't any! The pool was filled with gravel and the waterfall was set in place. The waterfall runs with a small pump set inside it. It’ll make the finished vivarium look quite impressive.

Hermit Crabs are renowned for being boisterous and particularly clumsy, so it was necessary to silicone some bark along the rim of the glass partition. This would prevent substrate from being kicked into the pool and also to allow leverage for the crabs to pull themselves out.

Whilst this was setting I had time to add the substrate to the land area. Hermit crabs dig themselves under ground for protection whilst moulting. Being invertebrates their skeleton is on the outside and moulting their skin to grow is a big deal. In the wild predatory birds could snatch them above ground level so they are forced under ground to do this. Even though hermit crabs are social creatures they are still opportunistic feeders. They would happily eat a moulting crab which would be soft and vulnerable and unable to protect itself, so it was important to factor in plenty of space to avoid this.

The next thing was to rehydrate the coco fibre to mix with the sand. Coco fibre comes from the husk of coconuts and is widely used in vivariums to provide sound air content and moisture in the substrate. The coco fibre was then added to the land area creating a gradient. This could then be mixed together lightly but the crabs would do a good enough job mixing it together themselves.

One of the last requirements for the vivarium was to add the climbing material. Drift wood is perfect for this because it’s so robust. I used smaller pieces along the climbing wall in steps for the hermits to climb over. Before it goes out on display I’ll add some bamboo and extra foliage.

Thanks to Phil from the aquarium, I was able to acquire a rainforest creeper called Devil’s Ivy. It’s commonly seen for sale in garden centres as house plants but its native to Asia. The plant was trained around the drift wood through to the fresh water pool. It’s a climbing plant and clings onto tree bark using its aerial roots. It’s also very hardy so will re-root itself quickly if the hermit crabs dig it up several times.

The Hermit Crab vivarium is now on display in the Bug House so come along and see them in their new home!

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to be allowed to tag along on a shoot of a video interview with internationally acclaimed artist, Emma Rodgers.

I went with our audio visual team to her house on the Wirral, where she has her studio. They needed to film Emma because her work is going to be included in our forthcoming exhibition ‘The Rise of Women Artists’ , which will be at the Walker Art Gallery from 23 October 2009 - 14 March 2010. This video would be used to create one of the interactive displays for visitors to explore in the gallery and also to make video clips for our website.

The team filmed her working on some of her sculptures, while she answered questions about her inspirations, early career and what it means for her to be a female artist.

It was really interesting to hear about the processes that Emma goes through when creating a sculpture, whether this is of animals or humans. Sketches form the foundation of her work, sometimes from observations at Chester Zoo and also during animal autopsies at Leahurst on the Wirral. Through her work, Emma also travels abroad regularly. This also helps her study of animal’s bodies as she is sometimes lucky enough to hold animals like monkeys. She said she had been able to get to know the character traits of different primates, which also influences the way she depicts them in her sculptures. Emma clearly loves animals as well as finding them inspiring – we even met her pet hare, Mr. Redfern, who she said has helped her think about joints and bone structures in her work.

Emma has also spent time observing and sketching dancers and said she is fascinated by their muscle structures and how their bodies become altered through dancing. As she was answering questions from curator, Robin Emerson, she was building up a sculpture of a woman’s body, piece by piece.

You’ll have to wait until the exhibition opens on 23 October 2009 to see the video clips and find out how that sculpture turned out! In the mean time you can find out more about Emma's work on her website or browse through our Emma Rodgers Flickr set.

When they handling team say they're moving houses they usually mean literally!

As I've mentioned many times before, there's never a dull moment for the handling and transport team. Since I last reported on their activities they have safely transported a huge variety of objects from our collections, including ship models, paintings, a stained glass window and some Hindu Gods (well, sculptures of them, anyway). Some have been moved from storage to the conservation studios for treatment and back again, other objects have been gone on or off display and a few have ben loaned to other organisations.

Some of the more unusual jobs have involved taking a whole rack of uniforms to the conservation freezer to treat a possible insect infestation and weighing weapons from the collection in order to determine the floor loadings of planned displays in the new Museum of Liverpool.

On a rare break from work a few weeks ago the team had a sneak preview of the new galleries currently under construction at the Museum of Liverpool. They were all impressed by the scale and design of the building. However in the back of their minds I'm sure they were all thinking the same thing - they'll have their work cut out installing all of the many objects in this huge building in time for the opening.

You can see what they've been up to in the Moving stories Flickr set of photos.

Send us your memories about Liverpool!

Here at the Walker Art Gallery, in partnership with the University of Liverpool, we are launching an exciting new programme of adult and family events inspired by Ben Johnson’s 'Liverpool Cityscape.'

Join us for cultural walks around the city or bring your little artists to Big Art and try out making collages inspired by this impressive panorama. Like all our events and exhibitions, it is all free!

We'd also like to hear about your memories, views and opinions of Liverpool past and present in our event; 'We Love Liverpool' taking place at the Walker.  All of the comments we get from you will be recorded to form a living history of the Liverpool.

If you can't make it to the gallery you can still submit your memories by adding a blog comment below. So let us know what you think...

Curator Jessica Feather and Exhibitions Officer Lucy Johnson get a closer look at Audrey.

It is a dream situation to be in the same room as Mick Jagger and Marilyn Monroe and although that's never going to happen for real (Mick won't return my calls) I felt at least a little closer to that dream in the Cecil Beaton: Portraits exhibition. Beaton was well-known for charming his subjects to get the best out of them and it certainly shows.

What's interesting is the way he seems to use the style of the portrait to reflect the persona of the subject he's photographing. Audrey Hepburn is photographed in a very minimal and striking pose, which seems to echo her elegant and chic image. Marilyn Monroe is pictured sprawled on a hotel bed holding a flower - almost like a lover's snapshot - showing her as carefree and sexy. I always prefer these less styled photos of Marilyn, rather than the done-up pouting images that you see most of the time.

The photographs offer an insight into Beaton's career through the decades, from the glamour of his work with Vogue to his grittier work as an official war photographer.

You can check out this free exhibition from today, at the Walker Art Gallery.

Press Officer Ed Casson has been getting up close to a new installation at the Walker - read on to find out what he's been up to...

Sit on some art today!

Visitors to the Walker Art Gallery are being encouraged to take a seat to enjoy art. Six unusually-designed chairs have been placed in Room 15 for people to sit on and admire, and I was one of the first to try them out. The installation is titled ‘Sitting On Art’ and the chairs can be freely moved around the room.

Designs include Harry Bertoias’ uncomfortable-looking wire diamond chair (cushions definitely needed for any sustained sitting), Verner Panton’s 1960 blue plastic chair (the first design for a plastic chair that could be made by injection moulding in a single piece) and the 1988 Dr Glob chair by Philippe Starck (which simply has front and back legs of different sizes).

Each design is famous and unique in its own right, reflecting the designers breaking free of the past and using up-to-date techniques and materials, such as tubular steel, plywood and plastics. The chairs are not the date of their design, but quite new. Some are reproductions, others have never gone out of production. That is why they are art you can sit on.

My personal favourite is the blue plastic chair, although I wouldn’t advise any adults to take a seat on its little brother (I foolishly did) which is also on display and clearly designed for children.

Sitting on art is one thing, breaking it is definitely another.

From 1910 to 2010, sailor chic rocks!

When choosing an outfit for a sunny day (though it is raining right now) you can't go wrong with navy and white. In particular, I'm very into the nautical stuff that is around at the moment. On a recent trip to Beyond Retro in Shoreditch I had to be talked out of purchasing a vintage sailor bib top, possibly taken from a real sailor in the mists of time (that's an actual era you know.)

In 1910, fashion fanatic and philanthropist Mrs. Emily Tinne would have been right on trend for this summer with her quirky sailor inspired espadrilles, which are now on show as part of A Sweet Life at Sudley House until Spring 2010.

Everywhere you look on the high street right now there are beachy espadrilles and sailor-style pumps, but none that combine the two things quite as well as Mrs.Tinne's little beauties. They are made of white linen and have a cool anchor design that has been hand-embroidered onto the toe with red wool.

Even über-model Agyness Deyn is a fan of the nautical trend - who would have thought Mrs.Tinne and Aggy would have something in common!

In these grim economic times and rainy days, we could do worse than remind ourselves that there is usually a light at the end of the tunnel! Forty years ago this week, John Lennon and Yoko Ono set about bringing a message of peace to the world from their bed in the Amsterdam Hilton hotel. They vowed to stay in bed for a whole week (24 - 31 March, 1969) in what they called a "bed-in for peace". It certainly drew alot of media attention to their message of peace and in particular their stance against the war in Vietnam, which can only be a good thing.  While this might not be everyone's idea of a great honeymoon, I can't think of a better place to stage a peace protest than a nice comfy bed. I took part in an anti-war demo in Manchester once and by heck it was freezing!

Feel the love

This wasn't their last bed-in though. A few months later on 26 May 1969, John and Yoko checked into Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel to start their next peace protest, to continue the momentum of the first one. For another week the couple, along with Ono's five-year-old daughter Kyoko, entertained guests including U.S. black civil rights advocate Dick Gregory, Quebec separatist Jacques Larue-Langlois and American cartoonist Al Capp. It was at the end of this bed-in that a historic and spontaneous performance of 'Give Peace a Chance' was recorded.

Here at the museums, we're very proud to hold a piece of this moment in history. In our collections we have an 'All You Need is Love' beadspread that was handmade by the local Montreal Hare Krishna Chapter and given to John and Yoko for the protest. 

Currently you can see the bedspread from the Montreal bed-in for peace in The Beat Goes On exhibition at World Museum Liverpool. Peace out.

Neon brights and clashing colours ruled the catwalk at the sports/casual show.

Following the fashion theme from Dawn's previous post, today it was Liverpool One's turn to host a series of fashion shows as part of Liverpool Fashion Week. Performing arts students from LIPA worked the catwalk (with plenty of attitude) wearing sports and casual wear from brands such as Blue Ink, Henleys and Fred Perry. Trainers were a big feature, with models carrying them around their necks while walking barefoot! Neon colours featured heavily, perhaps a hangover from the recent nu-rave trend, giving the whole show a bright, spring-like feel. It think my favourite t-shirt from the show was the Mr Men one from Blue Ink with the slogan 'I left Mr Grumpy at home', very cool.

If you are mad about sports/casual wear then take a few photos of your favourite tops or trainers and join our Metro V Retro Flickr group. Or drop in to see our Fashion V Sport exhibition and drool over the funky customised trainers.

To celebrate the opening of our new Fashion V Sport exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, I've put together a Flickr gallery of some of the cool and stylish outfits worn by some of our private view guests.

Part of the exhibition examines street style and the variety of styles I saw in one evening was certainly varied and creative. Damian Quinn, the man responsible for the gold topped ‘Onthamike’ trainers from the 'Play' section, was wearing a similar pair on the night from his Supremebeing brand. On the other end of the scale, self-confessed trainer obsessive 'Mookie' told me about her Nike Air Force 1 trainers that she had customised using multi-coloured paint spatters. She had worn them on her Duke of Edinburgh hike, before giving them a new lease of life with her own design! Mookie is a creative apprentice at the moment so who knows, she might be a Footwear Director like Damian one day.

Some of my favourite outfits of the evening included; Olivia's bowler hat, shoe-boot and vintage satchel ensemble and Amina's Camden/Indian mash-up including a sports top, shawl and gold belt. Have a look through the slideshow and pick your favourite fashionistas!

So the prices of new potatoes and i-pods are going up and we're being told to be prepared for a measly Christmas. But what does this mean for fashion? Will we be wearing polyester smocks for spring/summer 2009? Well one theory is that hemlines rise and fall with the stock market, so maybe we can expect ankle-skimming skirts to be everywhere. Though a recent article in the Guardian argues that this rule doesn't really work as; 'During the wartime years, arguably the period of greatest privation in modern history, hemlines were shorter than before or after the war.'

I think the tenacious fashion world will be ok as it's been through harder times than this and still made it to the other side with great style. Times are of course not as tough as during the second world war, when people had to 'make do and mend' while also facing the rationing of clothes and the introduction of 'utility' wear.  And this didn't mean combat trousers from Gap!

One of our curators, Alyson Pollard, will be giving an insight into these hard times for fashion, in a talk about our 1950s dresses display at the Walker Art Gallery.

Recovering from an economic crisis can inspire a whole new fasion trend!  Silk, satin and chiffon dress with sequins and silk thread decoration, by Jean Dessès

She explains; 'From 1939 women had learnt how to cope with the shortages caused by the war. However, in June 1941 the shortage of material for clothing was so severe that the government introduced clothing rationing. Clothing could only be purchased by giving up a fixed number of coupons from a very limited quota. Each person was given 60 coupons for the year; a skirt was seven coupons, a short jacket  was 11 and shoes were five coupons. Buying enough clothing for a whole year was a struggle.'

Though despite these restrictions on clothes, the '1940s look' is still one that remains extremely popular - remember Kate Moss and her tea-dresses from this summer? After the war ended, gradually the fashion world got back on its feet and was able to celebrate the end of rationing by designing dresses using acres of fabric - the classic fifties look was born! Our object of the month, a stunning evening dress by the designer Jean Dessès, is a great example of this.

If you want to find out more about the dresses of this period, then come along to Alyson's gallery talk on Wednesday 26 November at 1pm at the Walker. And the best thing is that like all our talks, it's absolutley free. So beat the credit crunch and come along!

There are two new exhibitions for 2009 that explore different aspects of fashion; 'Fashion V Sport' at the Walker and a Francesco Mellina photographic exhibition at the National Conservation Centre. Check our forthcoming exhibition listings for more information.

As promised in an earlier post, here's an update on the work of Kensington Youth Inclusion Group who have recently been creating their own versions of paintings from the John Moores 25 exhibition. Their interpretation of 'Black Bile' is certainly a refreshing new take on the painting, using an attractive candy pink! Here's Learning Officer Lauren Gould to tell us more...

Over four after-school sessions at the Kensington Youth Inclusion Project centre, we have created some fabulous works.  Local artist Keiron Finnetty help each of the two groups to create a large work based on some of their favourite paintings from the John Moores exhibition.

They collectively worked on a re-interpretation of 'Fontana' by Peter McDonald and 'Black Bile' by Alex Gene Morrison.  I highly recommend making a visit to the Walker Art Gallery once these unique works go on show at the beginning of December!

Each young artist then created a painting of their own, based on sketching done during their visit to the John Moores 25 exhibition in October.  This coming Saturday they will make their final visit to the Walker to write poems responding to the paintings that inspired them most. 

I'm good at making spaghetti bolognese, I'm not bad on bass guitar, but I am no good at drawing! I'm envious of anyone who's good with a pencil and we've been lucky enough to have some budding artists at the Walker Art Gallery recently, from Kensington Youth Inclusion Group. Here's Learning Officer Lauren Gould to explain what the group have been up to...

Making great art together: budding artists from the Kensington Youth Inclusion Group.

You may remember that some fantastic young artists took part in completing the 'Superfiveadaybanana' that was in the Walker Art Gallery as part of 'Go Superlambananas' over the summer.  Once again, these young people are participating in a project that will bring their work into the gallery for a unique display. 

Eleven young people from Kensington Youth Inclusion Group visited the John Moores 25 exhibition during the October half term.  They explored the exhibition looking at texture, colour, pattern and light as well as discerning the difference between abstract and figurative art.  The group focused on 'Fontana' by Peter McDonald, 'Sometimes We Sense the Doubt Together' by Roland Hicks and 'Special Relativity' by Julian Brain and explored the themes of; artists at work, everyday objects and home. Each young person did a drawing that they are going to develop into their own painting with local artist Keiron Finnetty.

Watch this space for images of their work progressing on the blog and for their paintings, which will be up in the resource area in the John Moores 25 exhibition at the end of November.

Sunday 2 November will be your last chance to vote on who you think deserves the Visitors' Choice award, from the John Moores 25 Contemporary Painting Prize exhibition. You can get a voting card at the Walker Art Gallery and have your say about who should win the prize of £2008.

Take a look at my earlier post about the Visitors' Choice award, and watch a video with some of this year's judges talking about a selection of paintings from the exhibition.

Get inspired and get voting!

Yes, today is National Poetry Day and the theme this year is work! Not too sure how inspiring that is as a subject, however, the aim of this day is to get poems into places you may not normally expect to find them. This might be; on toilet doors, on trains, on tablecloths in cafés and anywhere else that a poem will fit!

Here at the Walker Art Gallery, we have a free poetry workshop today from 2-4pm, with local writer Gladys Mary Coles. She will be taking a group of visitors around the gallery to hopefully get some inspiration from the paintings and then assist the group in writing some poetry. To book, call 0151 478 4178.

Get inspired!

The Bluecoat's first Chapter & Verse Literature Festival also kicks off today and you can go to free workshops and cool performance nights there for the next ten days. The final night of the festival, on Sunday 19 October, will be taken over by Heart Beats Poetry Night. This night will feature three exciting young poets, a band and free cake.

You can also send a free e-card, featuring poems from well-known writers if you want to spread some poetry love today. Just go to the National Poetry Day website.

Or if all this seems like a bit too much effort, why not just pick up some poetry and have a read at home with a cuppa? Sounds good to me.

Wow. What a great feeling it is to give rather than to receive, yes?! Well you have the power to help decide who will get the grand sum of £2008! All you have to do is get voting in our Visitors' Choice award for the painting you like best in the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery.

Take a good look through the exhibition and think about which painting deserves your vote. Which one jumps out at you? Which one leaves a lasting impression? Is there one that really gets under your skin?

Once you've made your decision, just cast your vote while you're in the gallery by filling in a Visitors' Choice card by Sunday 2 November 2008.

To get you thinking, here is a video with some of our judges;  Sacha Craddock, Paul Morrison and Graham Crowley, talking about some of their favourites:

.

Having not been to the Mathew Street Festival for several years (due to the high proliforation of Swedish Rolling Stones cover bands and 'highlights' being performers called Robbing Williams) I was persuaded to go along on Monday to check it out once more. I was pleased that they at least now have a new bands stage, but I wonder if the bands were getting paid as much as the fake rockers? Anyway it was worth it as I got to see local band, ASBOS, who I've seen before and are always deliciously weird. Great songs and cool vocals that remind me of The Pixies. It was good to see them up on a big stage, singing their classics; 'That's Not Mum' and 'Weird Dream' while getting screamed at, Take That-style, by a group of teenies wearing leopard print leggings and angel wings.

ASBOS? No, they look like such well behaved boys.

Later on I headed back into town to see one of the bands in the new 'Mathew Street Fringe Festival', which is basically all the proper bands, like ASBOS, from the Liverpool music scene and beyond. It was Be Your Own Pet's (Nashville, USA) penultimate gig before they split up. FOREVER. I saw them at Leeds Festival two years ago and wanted to see them in a small venue, which is always best. A shame they're splitting up as they really are a great band live. They didn't disappoint, with their singer Jemina ripping into every song and their bassist stage-diving over the crowd and writhing about on the floor at my feet! I spoke to him later and he seemed to have recovered, apart from a large lump on his forehead. That's real rock'n'roll for you.

This week saw the unveiling of the mysterious 'Arbores Laetae' or 'Joyful Trees' which started spinning near the Cains Brewery in Liverpool, to herald the run up to this year's Liverpool Biennial.  It all kicks off on 20 September, with the announcement of the winner of the John Moores 25 Contemporary Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery.

The creation of artists Diller Scofidio + Renfro, these spinning trees are certainly a bit spooky, but also not great if a dog decides to spend a penny nearby I think. Here is a video so you can check it out for yourself:

Make sure you check out 'The Pool' show with Dave Monks on BBC Radio Merseyside, from 8pm this Sunday 2 March! I'm going to be on choosing my top three favourite Liverpool tracks of the moment and talking about 'The Beat Goes On'.

So tune in to hear my choices...a bit of eighties, a bit of punk and some wooly-hat-wearing-Velvet-Underground- meets-psychedelic sounds. I once did a similar thing choosing some tracks on the fantastic Halton FM a few years ago (yes, the dizzy heights of stardom) but at the BBC you get free coffee and the microphones are bigger.

If you miss the show you can also listen online for a week after it has aired by going to the BBC Liverpool website.

BBC Radio Merseyside – 'The Pool'

Every Sunday evening from 8-10pm

BBC Radio Merseyside 95.8 FM, 1485 AM and on digital

Creamfields 06 UK (2006) © Cream

Just to let you know that Merseyside bands will get the chance to be part of the massive music exhibition, 'The Beat Goes On', if they join our new Myspace page at: http://www.myspace.com/thebeatgoesonliverpool !

It doesn't matter what kind of music you're into, just join us as a friend and you will be in with a chance to become part of the exhibition, alongside bands such as The Zutons, The Wombats, Echo and The Bunnymen and OMD.

'The Beat Goes On' exhibition will start this summer at the World Museum and will celebrate the city’s music venues, bands and creativity. 

On the Myspace page each month, we will choose ten tracks from bands on the friends list. These tracks will be featured on the Myspace page as a monthly top ten chart, where the public will be able to vote for their favourite online.

Top ten bands will have their band and track name displayed on a wall in the exhibition to show the top ten for each month. The number one track at the end of each month will be added to a ‘digital jukebox’ in the exhibition and will become part of 'The Beat Goes On', giving bands great exposure for their music and the chance to reach a larger audience.

Voting will begin at the start of June when the first top ten chart will be displayed on the exhibition’s Myspace page.

If you’re not in band, but you love Liverpool music, you can still join The Beat Goes On as a Myspace friend to get the latest updates from regular news bulletins.

So what are you waiting for? There's already some tracks up on the site to keep your ears occupied until the voting starts, so check out some new music today!

I’ve just recently got slightly obsessed with Tracey Emin. It started when I picked up her diary-style book, ‘Strangeland’ from my local second-hand bookshop (Amorous Cat Bookshop, really cool). It has crept up on me, to the point where I now buy the Independent every Friday to read her column and look at the accompanying artwork. And then recycle the rest of the paper. Ignoring the celebrity element, she is pretty fascinating and now I want to find out more about her actual work. Luckily my obsession has not gone un-noticed and I was given another book about her for Christmas, so I can start to read more about what she has produced. From what I already know, her work seems to be intensely personal and her sketches are appealingly messy and haphazard looking. I’ve started taking some polaroids which are mostly blurry, messy and definitely haphazard (because I’m not very good), so maybe I’ll carry on trying with that technique!

An early attempt with my polaroid camera

 I also found out that Tracey also has strong links with Liverpool, having co-judged John Moores 24 and created the ‘bird on a pole’ bronze sculpture, which was placed outside the Anglican Cathedral in 2005. She was even immortalised in Lego form in ‘Art Craziest Nation’ by The Little Artists (John Cake and Darren Neave) in an exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery! Her latest venture in Liverpool will be a neon installation, which is due to go on display in September 2008 at the Anglican Cathedral. She is now sober and has a growing interest in religion, so I can’t wait to see what that will be like…

You've missed a bit...

Wow what a mammoth painting! Like Angela (below) I came along to jostle with the local paparazzi (well, Jayne Barrett from North West Tonight, pictured above) and national press, to catch the first glimpse of Ben Johnson’s Liverpool Cityscape. Taking a closer look, I could see that a few essential bits are still missing…where are the Liver Birds? And the burning question – why have the hands on the clock of the Liver Buildings not been added in yet? Is Ben waiting until the last minute to add them, showing the exact time he finishes? That’s my theory anyway. Ben is also asking for your opinion on your favourite building in The Liverpool Cityscape. You can vote for your favourite by filling in a voting card in room 15 of the Walker and dropping it in the box that’s there. If you submit your entry before 11 February, you will be entered into a draw to win a signed print of your favourite building by Ben Johnson. A pretty unique prize!

Now it’s coming to the end of the year. Your reindeer antlers are drooping after the office Christmas party, the sequins on your party dress are fading and you’re wondering what happened to that pile of sprouts you hid behind the piano to avoid eating them (and avoid upsetting your host). So while you consider if you can stomach another mince pie, why not have a think about your favourite National Museums Liverpool exhibition from 2007 and vote in our online poll!

Did ‘Doves and Dreams’ inspire you way back in Spring of this year? Or did you enjoy getting an intimate glimpse of The Beatles with Michael Peto’s revealing photography exhibition? Have your say and come back to find out the results in January. Once you’ve voted, you can also check out our program of events for 2008 here…

Note: Now These Days Are Gone, Victorian Visions, Magical History Tour and Merchant Palaces are continuing into 2008.

No it's not another tragic episode of Celebrity Big Brother - I found these well-known 'personalities' side by side during my latest visit to the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

The lively 'L Factor' audio-visual display celebrates many of the sportspersons, actors, musicians and other famous faces who originate from the city of Liverpool, through film clips and a wall of fame. Pete Burns was almost unrecognisable from the footage of his eighties hey day while Cherie Blair (her Father, the actor Tony Booth was from Liverpool) stared calmly out from her photo on the surrounding wall. The wall also includes the likes of Kathy Tyson, Kim CattralI, Levi Tafari and even Cheggers!

Has Cheggers earned his place on the wall? (Image © Chegwin Media Associates)

I will admit to having a bit of a dance to the footage of Echo and the Bunnymen (much to the embarrassment of my companion). I was surprised to see the likes of Jason Isaacs – aka Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter - on the wall of fame. I had no idea he was a scouser!

Perhaps Courtney Love should be given an honorary place on the wall, as she lived in Liverpool for a while in the eighties. She stayed with Julian Cope from Liverpool band, The Teardrop Explodes, at his flat on Devonshire Road and she was apparently very inspired by the city.

Have a look and see if you agree with the choice of famous faces in the exhibition - who else do you think deserves a place there?

Helen Renner in her wonderful dress

I was pleased to be able to go along to the Slavery Remembrance Day events yesterday at Otterspool Prom. Thank goodness for the great weather! It was a busy afternoon with delicious Caribbean food followed by the libation ceremony and a mixture of live performances. The libation ceremony was a unique experience - it is a solemn African traditional ceremony, which remembers, acknowledges and honours African ancestors, elders and leaders. Chief Angus Chukuemeka commended the work of National Museums Liverpool and its staff, in producing a museum which he said touched deep seated emotions.

After the ceremony I met Helen Renner (pictured) a resident of Birkenhead, originally from Ghana. I wanted to talk to her because she was wearing amazing traditional dress! She explained that it was made from the commemorative cloth of her school, whose patterns symbolised different aspects of the school and Ghanaian culture. You can see it has a pattern of fish scales and cocoa pods, to represent the importance of the fishing and cocoa industries and is decorated with images of people from the Achimota School that it commemorates. Helen had been around the slavery museum and was planning to go back to have more time to take it all in.

My favourite part of the live performances that followed were the two dancers who performed fantastically energetic routines to traditional African music by the River Niger Orchestra. It was quite moving when they performed a dance to show how the slaves were forced to dance on the ships and how they were whipped as they did so. Everyone enjoyed the poetry performance by Levi Tafari who was met with cheers and got people on their feet. A day of great variety that I enjoyed being part of.

There is a buzz of excitement here at National Museums Liverpool as the momentum builds towards the opening of the International Slavery Museum. You may have heard already, that the Freedom Schooner Amistad, that set sail from Haven, Connecticut, USA on 21st June,  arrived on UK shores yesterday and will be docking in Liverpool on Sunday 19th August, in time for the opening of the International Slavery Museum. Amistad is a replica of the original ship that was commandeered by African captives in 1839, which is why the arrival in Liverpool has been planned to coincide with UNESCO Slavery Remembrance Day and the opening of the new museum. 

I was lucky enough to be able to see the mandala destruction ceremony at the World Museum Liverpool on Saturday morning and I thought I would share my experience with you in this blog! There were so many people there that I had to stand on tip-toes to be able to see, but it was great to see that so many people from Liverpool (and visitors from outside of the UK) wanted to be part of this unique and moving event.  After several minutes of hypnotic chanting the monks approached the mandala, ready to being its destruction. 

You could sense the anticipation in the room as all eyes where fixed on the brightly coloured coloured artwork and the monks in their striking robes and head-dress. After scoring the sand into four sections, the monks then took some of the sand into a container and began to sweep the sand into the centre of the board, creating rainbow patterns. The ceremony came to an end as the monks began a parade out into the street, with the surrounding crowd following, all the way to the Steble Fountain outside the Walker Art Gallery.

Monks outside the Walker Art Gallery

There were many stunned faces in the street as this unusual procession passed by! Some of the monks had already reached the fountain as our procession approached and they called out to us using large, thundering wind instruments. The monks circled the fountain before stopping to empty some grains of sand from the mandala, into the water...

You can read about the creation of the mandala in an earlier post, and see more photographs on Flickr. Watch our video of the monks creating the mandala using small tubes, funnels, and scrapers  and then view the chanting and desctruction ceremony from Saturday morning.